


Thorington

by HighestandCo



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Family, Gen, Horror, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 07:16:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 23,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15746919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HighestandCo/pseuds/HighestandCo
Summary: During the worst of the Forsaken invasion of Gilneas, Sir Elias Thorington returned home from his studies in Dalaran to defend his home. He fought the Queen's Flail, an elite and especially brutal unit of Forsaken Deathstalkers and routed them again and again. As Gilneas descended into anarchy, the Flail went after Elias's family and purged and scattered them. Since then, Elias has been searching for the survivors, hoping against hope that his family name won't die with him.One day he discovers that is niece Isabel, his sister's daughter out of wedlock, is still alive and now being hunted by the Flail. Elias and Owen, a young man taken captive by the Forsaken, race against time to reach Isabel first.





	1. Chapter 1

Owen hadn’t been hurt like this since he had lived with his father and that had been many years ago, more years now that he cared to count. Owen rarely cared to count anything.

This worked against him when the undead asked his age. They were grinning to each other as if this was some great joke or source of amusement. He had only been able to stammer out that he _thought_ he was between twenty and thirty years old.

They didn’t seem to like that answer very much, and when they started taking him out of the cage he began insisting that he was in fact twenty-seven. All of a sudden he was very convinced that he _was_ , in fact, twenty-seven.

Why shouldn’t he be? He didn’t really see any reason he couldn’t be twenty-seven years old. Twenty-seven sounded like a great age to be. Even the undead seemed to agree with him; they had nudged one of their friends with their blades and said something and had a great laugh when Owen said it.

Owen could only understand bits and pieces of whatever they said. He imagined that this was because they were dead and whatever they had spoken in life was twisted and rent. If _he_ had been dead (for example) wouldn’t it have made sense that he would not be able to speak as well or as clearly as he had when he was living? This made sense to Owen.

He had decided that he wanted to be twenty-seven, and he wasn’t sure if he would start keeping track of his age from now on. However he _was_ sure that he was twenty-seven _now_ , and it seemed a good thing to be sure of since the undead seemed to see great importance in his age. When he had said he was unsure of his age, they had begun taking him out of the cage—and he knew what happened when they took him out of the cage. So he told them he was twenty-seven and they all grinned to each other and laughed.

They didn’t take him out of the cage that day. He was twenty-seven years old, and he supposed that it was his birthday.

But then it was tomorrow and they took him out of the cage anyway and they got out the collar. Owen had not been hurt like this since he had lived with his father.

Owen hated the undead.

 

***

 

The town was laid out in remarkably symmetrical grids that reminded Elias Thorington how close to the original site of Dalaran city he was. He had perused his own mental records but in the end had had to resort to flipping through books such as _Rise and Fall of Towns in Lordaeron and Northern Gilneas after the Collapse of Arathor_ and old maps before he was able to recall the name of the miller’s town. It was Arnalda. Legend had it that it had been founded by the hero Arnald Hard-heart after the Troll Wars. He was buried in the town somewhere. Elias scrutinized the surroundings of town more closely and noted that the gravesite had been dug up.

Returning his attention to Arnalda proper, Elias scried out the location of the Forsaken’s gunpowder and men. He counted them and double-counted them. He did not detect any magi or anything darker. But he did note a shadow roaming the town, and that shadow frustrated every attempt he made to clarify its nature.

He spent too long trying to overcome the shadow. He finally released the tension in his chest with a growl.

After memorizing the rest of Arnalda’s layout, Elias quit the scrying spell and gathered himself. He got up from his cross-legged seat in the center of the chamber and looked outside the massive paned windows that hung like tapestries on the walls from ceiling to floor.

It was as dark outside as it was inside. The glass panes ran in streaks of rain. Total darkness transformed into blinding light when lightning flashed. The afterimages were of a woods thick and grim and rustling as if caught in an eternal struggle to shake off the rainwater.

Elias crossed from the rug in the center of the chamber and placed the orb he had been using into a cushioned chest made especially for it. He murmured a few words. The box thrummed and wafted down a hallway.

He made his way to one of the towers. He climbed a staircase he thought was too rickety and needed repair. This annoyed him and caught his attention far much more than it should have and he wondered what he could do about it. Hire someone? Every room he passed in the house was dark and it always would have taken at least ten of him stacked high and on their toes to reach the ceilings.

He was so consumed with the staircase that it took him a few moments to realize that he had reached the tip of the tower. It was circular and had a ceiling that he could have reached if he stretched. There were no walls but a railing. Rainwater ran like a curtain off the roof, making him feel as if he was on the inside of a waterfall.

The map was on the floor. It was beautifully rendered but had long worn down because of scuff and weathering. Still the exquisitely drawn depiction of Gilneas and southern Lordaeron caught his eye tonight and he smiled. It was flattened against the floor by an old spell.

Black pins dotted Gilneas, marking the portals he had not yet lost.

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

The undead woman returned and Owen began to cry. She asked him why it was he wept. She asked him until he answered.

He said that she was going to ask him about Isabel. She asked him why he thought that. He said that that was what she always did. He said that when he was brought out of the cage and the other undead weren’t allowed to talk to him any more and they made him put on the collar that she always came soon after, and she always asked him about Isabel.

She asked him why he thought that was the case.

He stared at her for some time, trying hard to think. He tried hard. When she asked the question again he said that he didn’t understand. She asked him about Isabel and he told her everything again and he knew it wasn’t exactly the same thing he had told her last time, or the time before that, or even the time before that, but he tried _very hard_ to make it exactly the same. He told her what he remembered and it was mostly the same as it always was, but it seemed it was impossible to please her and her sickly eyes. Everything around the undead woman was so dark and her skin was white like a maggot’s and rotten.

He told her that he had met Isabel when his friend Rane had introduced them. He said that this was in the town of Erenton. He started crying again and when she asked why he wept he said that it was because he didn’t remember where Erenton was. She didn’t hurt him. She said that it was okay that he didn’t remember where Erenton was.

He went on and said that Rane was his friend and that he lived in Erenton. Owen would steal things when he could and sometimes he would steal from his father. Rane would give him money for these things and sometimes he would see Rane with a woman with blue eyes and yellowy hair and she would smile at him sometimes and say that her name was Isabel. Sometimes, though, he would go see Rane and she wouldn’t be there. Once he asked where she was.

Rane smiled and asked Owen if he thought Isabel was a pretty girl. Owen said that he thought that she was. Rane said that he was right to say so. Rane talked about Isabel a lot after that: about where she came from, how her mother was a noble, and he would ask Owen again if he thought Isabel was pretty.

Rane said that Isabel wasn’t like Rane and Owen. Isabel had a family name and her whole name was Isabel Thorington. This was all before his father had found out Owen had been stealing things and had hurt him so bad that Owen had had to run.

He had run for a long time and he said that he was sorry he had run into the undead. He told the undead woman that he thought they were good people.

Owen tried to keep talking but the undead woman eventually drew close. She put her hands on his head and he couldn’t move it or get away because of the collar.

She hurt Owen very badly.

 

***

 

If someone walking through the woods had seen the grove, they would not have thought it looked unusual. It appeared the same as all the other trees and little groves that dotted the thick Gilnean forests.

However, if one drew closer one might see faint, strange markings on the trees that surrounded the little grove. And if curiosity got the better of one, one might approach and find oneself examining these trees. The markings would be discovered to be simple but of course bizarre. They would look like they had been carved with a dull knife. Each of these marked trees were arranged in the rough circle that made up the grove one might now doubt was natural.

Elias appeared in the center of the grove. It was so sudden and so quiet that one might have missed it if one had blinked. The human glanced about himself and then walked.

The rain was very heavy and made looking forward a chore. Elias’s coat was thick and he got on with an elaborate walking staff transfixed with an onyx jewel at its head. The staff kept him from stepping into the growing pools of water and rivulets that criss-crossed the forest.

It was as close as he could have gotten to Arnalda, but it was still a jaunt. He gathered his coat closer to him.

And every once and a while Elias would take a step and leave several yards behind him.

 

***

 

This time Owen made an effort not to cry. The undead woman smiled at him (so horrible!) but he did not cry. She said that he had done very well and that they were almost finished.

She said that if he wanted, Owen could come with them and he could serve the Queen. Owen was confused and said he thought that Gilneas was ruled by a king. The woman said that the king would soon be gone and that Gilneas would be ruled by the Queen. Gilneas, she said, was all but conquered. If he wanted, Owen would become so much more than he had ever been. She said that he would be like them.

Owen didn’t want to say no and upset her but he didn’t want to agree either. So he didn’t say anything at all, even when she asked again. After she asked a third time and he didn’t answer, she seemed disappointed. She left him in the collar.

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Arnalda was very quiet except for the downpour. Two guards each were fixed at every entrance to the town and patrols walked the perimeter at regular intervals. From above - which was how Elias’s quick-and-dirty scrying worked - the perimeter looked like a slowly circling ring of protection around the town. Elias expected this precision from the Forsaken and from the Deathstalker Lionel in particular. However, though he tried very hard, he could not find Lionel or discern what the shadow-shape was.

As content as he could be with reconnaissance, Elias began.

 

***

 

Out of the woods came a golem. It was as tall as some of the trees and looked like it was made of rocks and a watery, viscous substance that was black and blended with the rainy night. It had no eyes but it darted from the protection of the woods straight into the town.

To say the Forsaken were surprised was to say that Hellscream was Warchief. They stared at the monstrosity with slack or knitted jaws agape and after this shocked pause raised the cry of battle. Patrols and the guards faded into the protective cover of urbanity. A few crossbows went off in a first volley.

If the bolts hurt the thing, pain did not slow it. With a quiet that conflicted with its ferocity (it did not have a mouth either) the golem slammed into a makeshift barrier that the Forsaken had built around a well. Cobblestone and lumber shattered apart and the Forsaken fell back, scrambling in the rainwater-slicked road. They continued raising the cry, hoping their comrades would run to their aid in time.

Indeed, much of the garrison soon arrived. Forsaken with shields and wicked swords made darting attacks against the golem and worked to unbalance it.

The golem, for its part, swung like a child picking toys and scattered the Forsaken attacks again and again. When it knocked over undead it would swing again while they were prone, crushing them and breaking their sodden guts on the stone. This continued until the undead woman arrived with a shouting rasp:

“Into town! Fall back. That’s a magi’s golem. It—”

And that was when the balls of fire began.

 

***

 

With their formation in disarray, Elias walked into Arnalda unimpeded. The town’s buildings were in disrepair, but it looked like they had been that way for a long time. This was just a temporary base for the Forsaken and held little strategic significance.

He reached the market square. It really was just a big stone square crowded by buildings and streets that ran from it geometrically. It was wide open. The Forsaken were retreating in a chaotic hustle from his golem, which stood a couple heads higher than most of the buildings. It looked taxed.

He also noticed something else in the square. There were some wagons for the Forsaken’s supplies and weapons and next to one of those wagons was a man-sized cage. It was empty. But near the town hall was a lantern pole and sconce. And where there should have been a lantern hooked to the pole was instead a collar cinched about the neck of a young, red-haired man.

He looked starved and wore torn clothes; they hung from him like rags. His eyes were so wide that even from across the square Elias could see their whites. He watched the golem, his collar gripped with both his hands.

Elias diverted his course and walked towards him. The Forsaken were just starting to spill into the square, squeezed by the bottle-neck of the street. While walking towards the young man, Elias started pronouncing spells—or rather the same spell over and over. His hands ran in quick patterns. Light danced off them and few of the Forsaken were able to see what was about to happen to them before it did.

The dark square came alive with firelight light. Tumbling, burning spheres rocketed from Elias’s hand. They careened towards the bottle-neck of the Forsaken, slamming their rotting bodies like giant fists and igniting them despite the rain. The balls of fire were more red than orange or yellow and they came on the Forsaken again and again. They scrambled to get out of Elias’s line of sight, ignoring and obeying orders shouted and screamed by their superiors.

Four, six, seven, eleven, fourteen globs of red fire and even the buildings around them started to catch.

Elias’s heartbeat quickened but he remained calm.

The small unit folded before his onslaught. Some tried to turn back and slip around the golem. A couple escaped this way but the others were accosted and broken by the golem. His arms and legs swung in a bone-crushing windmill that looked absurd and amusing. Other Forsaken fanned and darted down other streets. A few charged Elias and he blew them back with charged punches of arcane force.

_MAGUS._

The town in front of Elias blinked and shook. He stumbled and only barely caught himself from spilling onto the road. Gripping his staff for balance, he looked around. What…?

Whatever it was, it hit him again. This time it was so strong he cried out and tumbled onto his back. His hood fell off and he felt his head and neck and shoulders immediately soak as assuredly as if he had been dunked in a pool. It made his bones feel old.

He screwed his eyes shut and grit his teeth. Another wave of pain rolled through his skull. It was as if there was a small monster in there and ripping apart his brain piece by piece.

Images of the mansion he had left, now bright with light and wafting laughter, and the sound of clinking glasses and conversation, filled his head. A man in pristine attire and heavy jowls grinned at him and waved, a glass of wine in one hand and a beautiful woman in the other.

_Come Elias! You are not now among the Kirin Tor. What use is a vacation if you can’t enjoy yourself? Here, I have someone I want you to meet—_

The attack hit again and he screamed, though he could not hear himself. It was like two women leaned into each of his ears and shrieked at the top of their lungs.

He gripped his staff with both hands and slammed its head onto the pavement like a sledge. A wave of force knocked him several feet to a bruised landing. But the shrieking vanished and his hearing returned.

Murmuring, Elias rolled over and righted himself with help from a spell. As soon as he was on his feet again he flicked wards. Even as he finished his most rudimentary ones, the attack came again. But now the screaming and shrieking cameas if from underwater.

He looked around. Near where most of the Forsaken had broken stood a figure, hands resembling claws drawn up to her breasts. She had a face that looked like it had been caved in by a warhammer. Everything on her expression was flat and snake-like.

Priestess. The urge to charge her was very strong and he only barely resisted it. Gripping a portion of his cheek between his teeth until he could taste blood, he remained calm.

First he let the golem collapse. Most of it landed on what had once been a smith’s. He felt the mighty strain vanish and he exhaled. He tensed when the priestess struck again, with enough venom for his gaze to swim. Gay lighting danced before his eyes again and glasses met each other with _clink_ s.

He extended his staff towards the Forsaken and resumed his walk towards the young man in the collar. She was heading towards him as well. He let out one, two, three fireballs at her. They exploded in a halo around her. A dark shimmering made her form look ethereal.

“Where is Lionel?” he called.

She laughed and wheezed. “With your head I’ll be a hero!” she yelled. Other Forsaken ran by her towards him and her decaying lips turned up in a snarl.

He slammed the head of his staff into the ground again and the Forsaken were thrown flying from his presence. He raised a hand and fire gushed at her as if from a geyser.

“Where is Lionel?” he asked again. The priestess’s protection was wavering. “ _Tell me!_ ”

The priestess dashed forward towards the young man. A series of explosions ricocheted through the geyser of flames and the priestess shrieked, raising her hands just in time to receive the flames. They gobbled up her cloak and dove hungrily into her flesh.

Elias hurried forward and stood between her and the young man. He let the geyser sputter out and watched as the priestess danced, her hands flailing. Flaming char wafted off her. He glanced to his side and saw a Forsaken who hadn’t finished fleeing the square. He spoke another incantation and the Forsaken slammed into a wall, knocking free a few potted plants that had been long since dead. He surged forward, trying to get away, but his arms were locked onto the wood. He struggled there. Elias returned his attention to the priestess.

She had collapsed onto the ground. She continued burning like a fallen torch; the rain couldn’t extinguish her. Elias clucked his tongue.

He waited several minutes to be sure that the fight had totally gone out of the Forsaken. When he was certain that everyone was either gone or dead, he turned.

“Hello young man,” he said quietly. “Stay still. I’m going to try and get this contraption off you.”

When Elias knelt next to him the boy recoiled. His eyes were still wide and they were ringed with darkness and bore heavy bags. Dirt had turned to mud and grime and his face and hair was streaked with the stuff. Elias wrinkled his nose and couldn’t stop himself from drawing back for a moment. The young man had soiled himself. Multiple times, perhaps.

“I am a friend,” he said. “I am here to help you. The dead are gone. Please, stay still. I don’t know what it is they’ve got you in. What is your name?”

He sat beside the boy. Under the muck and malnutrition, Elias guessed that he was barely more than a boy. His mouth hung open a bit and his red-whiskered cheeks were drawn together towards his nose, making him look like a lost fox. Elias remembered what the attacks of that priestess had felt like in the heat of combat and wondered how long the boy had been here.

Well, he more than wondered. He had to ask and he had to ask soon. Lionel had already moved on… and he’d gone without the boy.

The words came too slowly. The boy said in a croaky whisper, “Me name’s Owen.”

“Hello Owen. I am Sir Elias Thorington and I am at your service. Now, I want to get you out of this wicked thin, but I’ll need your help to do it, all right? I need to know what I’m dealing with.”

Owen’s head bobbed. He said, “It only hurt when she wanted it to.”

“Can I take a look?”

“It only hurt when she wanted it to.”

Elias leaned in and ran his free hand over the collar without touching it. He drew on the energy a bit, enough for him to get a taste of it, if there was anything to taste. And there was.

It tasted dead and it tasted rotten. Bile rose in Elias’s throat and he coughed, but swallowed it back down.

“Please don’t hurt me.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Please don’t let them hurt me, sir.”

Elias ignored him. He got up and walked over to the smoldering priestess. With a wave of his hand the flames vanished. He felt his way through her cloak and returned to Owen with a key.

“This should have it,” he said. He fitted the key to the lock and it snapped open. It took Elias guiding Owen to help the boy disentangle himself from the collar. When he was free he stumbled a bit. Elias kept him from falling over.

“I’m sorry sir.”

Elias grunted.

“I’m very, very sorry. You’re not going to put me in the cage are you?”

“No.”

Owen glanced at the cage across the square and stared at it for a long while.

“Are you sure, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you sir.”

Elias began muttering to himself. While he did, the boy looked at him and he looked uncertain. Elias waved him off and finished. There was a sharp sound like an intake of breath. The rain that would land on them diverted itself about them in a sort of curtain.

“Are you cold…?” Elias had forgotten his name.

“Yes,” the boy said.

Gods did he stink. The stale space he had created underscored the smell.

After a long silence, Elias said, “I am sorry, boy.”

“Sir?”

“I need to know. What was the priestess asking you about?”

“Priestess?”

“The dead woman. What did she want to know?”

More silence. After a moment, Elias glanced at the boy. His shoulders were trembling.

“It’s all right,” Elias said, even though it was not. Every delay set Lionel closer to his prize. “Do you want to know what she was?”

“Who?”

“The dead woman.”

“She was undead.”

“You’re right.” He was glad the boy wasn’t so fucked that he didn’t understand that. “But she wasn’t like the other undead, was she?”

The boy looked across the square to where her crisped remains turned to a sodden mess.

“Is she really dead now sir?”

“Yes she is.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

The rain went on around them. The rivulets in the cobblestone still passed underneath them.

“She was a dark priestess, boy. Instead of calling on the Light to protect her like a proper priest, she called on the shadow and the void and the darkness. She used this evil magic for her own gain. Whereas the Light grants strength, soothes and heals, the shadow saps our wills, corrupts and destroys. When we were fighting she attacked my mind like a swordsman would attack another swordsman.”

The boy looked up. “She was evil.”

“Yes. She was.”

“She wanted to know things about me, sir.”

“Things such as what?”

His shoulders trembled again. Elias waited, his teeth grinding quietly in his mouth.

“They wanted you for a reason,” he finally said. “Why did they want you?”

“They wanted to know about Isabel, sir.”

Elias closed his eyes. He had thought it, but hadn’t dared hope.

She hadn’t died with Melissa. She must not have been there when the Queen’s Flail got to her mother. Had Melissa sent her away? Had she known even then that the name Thorington had made her a target? No, she must not have. She least of all.

The last time he had seen Melissa, Isabel had been only a small lump concealed by a clever dress. Elias had been home from his studies and he had been forewarned of his sister’s indiscretion by his father.

Melissa had hid the child well, but would not have been able to much longer. Father was planning on turning her out with a livable sum of money.

When Melissa had demanded Elias stand up for her in this foolishness that Father was set on, Elias had treated her to a frigid look. He had turned his shoulder on the sister he had played with in the woods in his youth.

He had felt guilt for that, but it had had to be borne. What else could he do? Melissa had chosen her path in spite of everything they had warned her of and threatened her with. Now she had to wear a clever dress to hide her shame.

No Thorington ever saw the birth, or had ever heard from their black sheep of a sister again. Elias soon returned to Dalaran and resumed his studies. After Lordaeron fell and the wall came down and the Forsaken came, Elias had looked for Melissa as he had looked for the others.

He had come home to an vacant estate. There was no sign of his family, which was to be expected, considering the stakes of the war had come to their doors. They must have all been called to arms. But the grounds were also totally vacant of servants. As he became reacquainted with his homeland, Elias discovered the phenomenon wasn’t uncommon. All had either took up arms against the monstrous invaders or fled.

This hunt brought him into conflict with the Queen’s Flail, a company of Forsaken ravaging the countryside. As the last of his house, Sir Elias Thorington turned his well-honed talents on the Flail and became their greatest and most recurring foe. They became intimate with each other.

So they hunted his family too. They had killed Melissa when they found her. He redoubled his efforts to find his family with all his magic and power, but could not find them. He had another sister Sarai, but she had married young into a prestigious family. When he had gone looking for her, he had found her family’s compound in ashes. The Thoringtons, who could trace their name back to the founding of Gilneas - even from before the Troll Wars, before the Arathor was established in all its glory - were now a hunted people. Hunted by the dead.

Elias kept the estates protected and hidden from the Forsaken and any others who might want access to his family’s wealth or assets. Elias was childless and had never married. Thomas’s four children bore the name Thorington (three of which were boys), but Elias could not find them. Sarai Achenbonn and her children were likewise nowhere to be found; he presumed them all dead. Melissa Thorington dead.

But Isabel… Isabel Thorington had been found. Alive.

Somehow, the Flail had found her. Lionel’s stalkers were on the hunt again. A Thorington to catch. A Thorington to taunt him with, to lead him into traps. Even an illegitimate child…

To Elias’s knowledge - and excepting himself - Isabel was the last to carry the name.

“What was your name son?” Elias asked the boy.

“Owen, sir.”

“Walk with me,” he said. “Tell me of Isabel. Then we’ll see if we can’t get you a change of clothes.”

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

He ended up bringing Owen back to the estate. At first, Owen didn’t want to go with him. He said that he’d be fine on his own and that he was very thankful to Elias for saving him. Elias told him that he needed to find Isabel.

“Why did the undead want to know about her?” Owen asked.

“They want her because they want me,” Elias said. He was starting to learn that he needed to speak down to the boy. He wondered if he had always been as he was or if the interrogations by the priestess had done the damage. “The priestess was a member of the Queen’s Flail, an elite Forsaken company that took part in the war on Gilneas. I fought in the war and I became a bit of an expert at hurting the Flail. I hurt them so badly, I bragged about it. During the war I often taunted their captain, Commander Horace, or any other Forsaken prisoners I took. I told them I was Sir Elias Thorington and that it would be by my hand that the Flail was destroyed.

“But then the war went badly and I never destroyed the Flail. I kept killing them, though, even when the crown’s forces went to pieces. Horace ordered his chief man, Deathstalker Lionel, to hunt down my family and try to break my will. He’s killed many in my family. Every Thorington I’ve been able to find. Now he’s found someone we both thought was dead.”

Owen was staring at him blankly, his mouth open wide enough for a rat to climb in and nest. Elias sighed.

“Isabel is my niece, Owen. They want to hurt her because they want to hurt me. I need to find her before they do.”

It was only after he said that that Owen agreed to go with him. Elias led him to the grove. When Elias looked back to check on him, he saw that the boy’s head was down and his lips were moving periodically. He looked very worried and eventually spoke up.

“You killed the undead woman,” he said. “So they can’t hurt Isabel like they hurt me?”

Despite himself Elias chuckled. “They don’t need a shadow priest to hurt her, Owen,” he said. “If we can’t find her soon, they’re going to hurt her very badly. Probably worse than what they did to you.”

“Worse, sir?”

“Yes.”

He did not speak again for a long time. But Elias pushed him again and this time he simply starting talking and it was like a dam had been broken. He was so caught up with saying things that he barely seemed to notice when Elias reached the grove and teleported them both to the manor.

Owen said that he had lived in a town called Erenton with his father. As he talked Elias got the sense that Owen didn’t want to talk about his father, but that omission left Elias with a fuller picture than if the boy had elaborated on the point. Owen resorted to stealing things from his home and other homes too, when he could, to eat and otherwise support himself. The person he went to to sell these things he stole was a childhood friend named Rane.

Elias had Owen wash. However, he remained outside the washroom’s doors so Owen could continue telling the story. Elias got the feeling that Rane was of a higher criminal mind than Owen. Rane struck Elias as the common opportunist who lived off the kind of war that plagued Gilneas. Elias had to kneel down and bite his inner cheek till he bled again when he heard that it was in Rane’s company that Owen had seen Isabel.

“How did the priestess know that she was my niece?” Elias eventually called, when he had calmed.

“Rane said it,” Owen said. He was taking his time to really enjoy the washroom. Elias doubted he had ever been in one before. He would have to clean it when this business was finished. “I don’t think Isabel liked it when he said it, because he would only tell me that her name was Thorington when she wasn’t around. It was like he was bragging.”

A whoremaster bragging he had noblewomen in his stock. By the time Owen had finished washing, Elias had thought up eleven different ways he might go about what came next.

There wasn’t much more to the story. Owen hesitated when he started talking about Erenton, and when Elias told him that he already knew where that town was, Owen seemed relieved. He had not known where his own hometown was.

“Do we really have to go back there, sir?” Owen asked. Elias had given him new clothes - far from his family’s best - and a heavy coat.

The rain was letting up, but Elias had lived in Gilneas long enough to know it couldn’t last.

“Isabel is there, Owen,” he said. He thought he had figured out why Owen was helping him despite his fears about the undead. He thought it would be enough motivation for him to go back home as well. “She’s going to be in a lot of trouble if we can’t get there before Lionel. Do you feel well enough to travel?”

Owen nodded. Elias hadn’t thought he had understood him, but he took it as if he had.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Erenton was bigger than Arnalda and Elias was surprised to discover it was in good shape for a town its size. It was farther south and near the sea, so the Forsaken must not have hit it yet; if they had they had not hit it very hard.

There were people walking the streets when they got there. Elias supposed that the sun had come up, but the clouds were still too heavy and the rain had begun again so it wasn’t clear. Still, the pitch blackness had retreated and the town was lit with sporadic lamps, which impressed Elias because oil - even oil for lamps - was not easily come by now. He guessed that Erenton had grown out of fishing communities to its east and south. Equally probable was that the town had its roots in the capital and was a product of overcrowding. He thought it most likely a combination of the two.

Elias was suspicious of everyone he saw. In his opinion, any person who thought to carry on with their lives just as they had before the war was either a fool or hiding something. He was certain that Erenton was full of fools and also secrets. No matter how well they had avoided the war, there was the Plague to think about. And there was the Curse.

So it was that he wanted to go about his business in the most nondescript manner as was possible. Elias had on another of his heavy cloaks and thick breeches and he carried his cane instead of the staff he had brought with him to Arnalda. It would have drawn too many eyes - all of them, it was probable. The cane was subtler and had tricks of its own.

He’d equipped Owen with a similar outfit and the two were indistinguishable from a distance, though Owen was taller. They kept their hoods up and when Owen’s slipped Elias had to keep reminding him to pull it up. It wouldn’t do any good for them to cause a stir with Owen’s reappearance either. He had thought about with a background for them, but had decided against it. Owen had grown up here. If push came to shove, people would recognize him. Besides, he doubted the boy would have been able to keep straight an alternative identity. He could hardly do such for his own.

The town was waking when they arrived. Owen seemed to be falling asleep on his feet and had asked once if they could have stopped to rest. Elias had declined and urged him on. Now he plodded like a mindless Scourge. Elias had to walk slowly so as not to leave him behind. Townsfolk - the few that were awake and going - gave the two strange looks. Looks reserved for outsiders.

“Come along,” he said. “When we reach Rane’s you can sleep.”

Owen looked mournful but kept going. He led the way down a few main streets and through a slow market. Elias kept close watch on those they passed. He detected slumbering arcane power in only a couple. One older woman seemed to recognize Owen and scowled when she did. Owen cringed as if struck and walked the opposite end of the road from her.

Elias inclined his head as he passed. She spat on the road.

Owen took a few more streets - these not so wide - and Elias noted a familiar, gradual transformation of the town. Buildings that before had stood tall and were lit within now became slumped and shadowed. Doors vanished from doorways. Cobble turned to dirt and dirt to mud. There were no more lamps and the few lampposts were defaced and in a few instances damaged.

“Is this where you lived?”

Owen’s head went up and down.

“Charming neighborhood,” he remarked. He felt foolish immediately after.

“Thank you sir.”

If possible, the scenery grew worse. They avoided lakes of fetid mud. People became more common. They sat or stood on doorsteps and to a man and woman watched the two pass. None said anything or did anything like that older woman back in the center of town. They just watched and Elias got the feeling that it wasn’t all malice. They were watching because the two were something to watch. He pulled his hood closer to himself. The damp coolness was getting to him again.

Owen stopped. It took Elias a few steps to realize it.

“There,” he said. His dead, bloodshot eyes pointed the way.

The building was flat, two-storied and its windows were boarded. Instead of a door there was a scrawny-looking, sleeveless young man. There was also a girl with choppy, short copper hair. She was hugging her coat.

Elias grunted.

“Can I go find some place to sleep now?”

“You can sleep inside.”

Owen shifted uncomfortably. He eyed the scrawny man.

Both the young man and the girl had taken notice of them. The young man watched them with the same flat eyes of everyone else this side of town, but the girl walked to them. She started towards Owen but then changed course towards Elias.

“Hi Owen.”

Owen murmured something and looked down. The girl stopped in front of Elias.

“Hi,” she said.

“Morning,” Elias grumbled. “How do you do?”

“What’s your name traveler?”

He hesitated. “Elias.”

“That’s a handsome name it is, sir.” She came closer and opened her coat for him.

For some reason, Elias’s eyes went to Owen. The boy’s head was facing towards the ground. The scrawny young man’s head leaned against the doorway. He felt more intruded upon by him than the girl.

“What’s your name?” Elias asked.

Her shrug was very small. “What would you like it to be, sir?”

“I’m sorry, miss. I’ve come for a particular name.”

“What’s the name?”

“You first,” he said.

Elias had calculated that Isabel couldn’t have been older than sixteen years. It was difficult to tell, but if he had been a betting man he would have put money on the fact that the girl now before him hadn’t more than thirteen. That said, it wasn’t a risk he was willing to take. If Owen couldn’t pick her out and Rane refused to… Well, the Light damn him if he walked into a whorehouse and every girl answered to Isabel.

For the first time, a bit of life sparked in the girl’s eyes. The glare couldn’t have lasted a second, but it was toxic.

“A name don’t matter sir. There’s a reason I’m out here, you know. You won’t find better. Come inside.”

“I’m sure I won’t,” Elias said. He pulled out a hand and placed it on her shoulder. The young man’s head lifted from the building.

Her eyes widened and she went very still. He shifted his hand a bit, like he was caressing her. Then he raised his hand a bit - not enough to expose the shoulder - and he saw the goose-pimples run down her shoulder blade at the frigid touch of the silver. They rested, one on top of another, in the valley between her neck and the ball of her shoulder.

“Hey!” the scrawny man was standing now. He had his arms crossed. “Inside or down the road you go. Got it mate?”

Slowly - terribly slowly - the girl reached up and quietly pulled the silver off her shoulder. The hand closed into a fist and the fist slid inside her coat.

Elias grinned for the lookout. He didn’t look up from her. “Your name,” he said. “And hers.”

The girl’s eyes were struggling to be anything but wide. Elias wondered if he had overtipped, and if he had, by how much. It hadn’t been that much money… Had it?

“Last call, mate,” the scrawny man said. There was a small squeak and Elias had the grace to glance up. One of the “boarded” windows creaked open. The tip of a crossbow peeked out.

“Come on,” Elias said.

The warning seemed to snap the girl back to herself. Her coat came back together and she took Elias’s arm with her free hand. Her other hand was still buried in her coat, and Elias knew where it sat, turning white from clenching, as if that would make it any more invisible when Rane came around.

If he ever did again. Elias kept his grin on and an arm around her tiny waist. Walking with his cane still, he snapped his fingers at Owen until the boy obediently fell in behind him like a whipped dog. The window above creaked shut again and the scrawny young man gave him a scowl that was missing teeth.

Then he was inside.


	6. Chapter 6

Elias had seen more whorehouses than ballrooms since the war began but he still wasn’t accustomed to them. He couldn’t help but evaluate. Rane’s house didn’t rank very high when he did.

The girl had told him true. The women in the common room were bony, bat-like creatures and leathery old wenches who revealed stained teeth when they smiled. This was his first impression, but when he took another quick-eyed survey he saw that there were some exceptions. He caught himself hoping that one of these exceptions was Isabel and shame overwhelmed him.

_Because she must be beautiful, no? Like her mother who caught every man’s eye? And what if she isn’t? It’ll be hell marrying one of these women off, won’t it? What then for the Thorington name?_

He shook his head, trying to silence his own thoughts. He felt sick. It was always the damned brothels that made him feel sick.

The night had ended so it was hardly festive or busy. Still, there were a few patrons and they either ignored him completely or gave him violent looks. He let the girl lead him along, ignoring the jealous glares from the other women. It must have been a full time job for Rane to keep her safe and working. Beside them, Owen shuffled through the crowd and kept pace. He seemed to be looking for a space of floor or couch in which to collapse, but he followed just the same.

Elias whispered in her ear, “Your name?”

“Lily.”

He debated whether it was likely or not to be her birth name. If it was fake it was clever. He decided that Rane had given it to her.

They took the stairs. The man guarding the way up had a full head and a half on the scrawny watchman outside and a brawn Elias was surprised to see. Elias inclined his head to him. He didn’t react.

Lily stopped at the top of the stairs. “What’s the name?” she asked.

He watched her for a moment. Then, deciding he hadn’t a better option, he said, “Isabel.”

Something passed over Lily’s face then, like a sky-ship had moved overhead and blotted out the sun from her face. She looked like she wanted to take a step back, but the silver magnetized her to him. She gave Owen a look.

“Is she here?” Elias asked.

“Yes,” Lily said. It was a carefully chosen answer.

“Is she well?”

“Yes.”

“Bring me to her, now.”

Her lip curled up and she chewed it. She didn’t answer for seconds.

“Miss Lily?”

“I have to talk to someone.”

“You mean Rane?”

Another, sharper glance at Owen. Owen winced as if struck and tried to find something else to look at.

“Can I go to sleep now?” he complained.

“You mean Rane, don’t you?” he ignored Owen. “She’s Rane’s girl, isn’t she? Come now and tell me so.”

“Yes.”

“Can I please go sleep sir?”

Still she was hiding something. Elias didn’t have time to drag it out of her question by question. “Bring me to them. Now.”

They got only to the bottom of the stairs. When they reached the bruiser, Lily peeled off from Elias and told the man that she was having trouble.

The bruiser’s eyes locked onto Elias. “What kind of trouble that’d be, Lil?” he asked. Elias realized now that he was chewing something. It smelled abysmal.

When Elias took a step back towards Lily, the girl shrank back and the man stepped forward.

“Handlin’ me rough,” Lily said. When no one reacted, she added, “And he ain’t paying.”

“That so?”

Elias broke out his grandest smile. It was the last one he had the patience for. “More than enough in her pocket,” he said. “Paid and tipped. Check for yourself. That pocket right there.” He pointed and she slapped his hand down.

“Liar,” she said. “I made that last night.”

Elias clucked his tongue and shook his head. The desire to act was very strong and the inside of his cheek started to itch. “A thief _and_ a whore,” he remarked, looking Lily dead in the eyes. “I suppose I should have expected such from a place like this.” Owen started to walk away, but Elias caught him by the collar and pulled him back.

The bruiser eyed them both. “Get the hell out of here,” he finally said.

“I request an audience with the manager of this establishment,” Elias announced. He was starting to make a scene, and bored women gave him their attention. “The treatment of myself and my coin has been nothing less than unprofessional.”

The bruiser stared at him. Then he said again, “Get the hell out of here.”

“It’s as if I am speaking to plaster,” Elias marveled to Owen.

“Can I go sleep now?”

“See?” Elias gestured to Owen. “We have nothing but the most seedy and innocent of intentions. You know this young man. You must. He sang your praises the whole walk here. I’m sorry to say you aren’t living up to my expectations. Where is your boss? I demand to see him.”

“I won’t say it again grandpa,” the bruiser said. “Move it or you’re going to lose something. You can leave Owen here.” He gave him a crooked grin. “We ain’t seen him in a long while. Time we caught up.”

Elias glanced from Owen to the bruiser to Lily to Owen again. He sighed.

“This is exhausting,” Elias said. “Tell me where Rane is.”

“All right,” the bruiser said, as if that concluded the matter. Lily scrambled backward.

The brothel fell silent in anticipation. Everyone’s attention was on them. Grins were exchanged.

“Get ‘em Sai!” one woman yelled.

But Sai did not “get ‘em.” In fact, he remained exactly where he was. Confusion traipsed across his face. Then panic.

“The fuck?” he whispered. His arms were crossed, trembling there.

Elias walked up to him. He reached up and ran a finger along Sai’s cheek. He flicked his ear with a thumb. Some woman gasped.

“Sai,” Elias said. “It is good to meet you—though not under these circumstances. I don’t understand why you hold such secrecy in your names. It’s baffling. Names are everything to me. I am Sir Elias Thorington, Magus of the Kirin Tor of Dalaran, knighted by your king, Genn Greymane. I would say that I am at your service but, really, you are at mine. I am looking for Isabel Thorington and Rane No-Name your whoremaster. And if you do not answer me this time and tell me exactly where they are, then you have my word as a gentleman that I will pull out one of your eyes.”

Sai’s expression was priceless. Trembling and working up a sweat, his eyes shot to the stairs.

Elias turned just in time to receive a tumbling ball of blue.

His world disintegrated into a mass of cold fire. He shrieked and fell whirling and flailing. He collided with a few tables and overturned a couch. Others cried out around him. The cold ate through his clothes and lapped at his skin, driving to the bone. Immediately his teeth were set to chattering and his whole body to shaking.

When the world righted itself, he saw that he had landed on his back across the room. He was covered in a viscous film of ice that froze him to the floor and half of a broken couch. He blinked to orientate his vision.

With one foot on the stairs and one foot on the floor, a young woman in a dress stood. It wasn’t a great dress; it was not even a good dress, but it was a _dress_ , and it made her stand out from every other woman in the room in a way that even Lily had not. The dress was slit up one way as if with the crude blade she held in one hand. In the other was raised a swirling light of azure patterns pockmarked by tiny dancing runes. Her straw-yellow hair hung in half a braid that looked like it had been interrupted. Her mouth was half-open in a snarl, and Melissa Thorington’s eyes of uncut sapphire smoldered in their sockets.

And a part of him said: _Thank the gods._

The other part of him stared disbelievingly straight ahead. His mouth hung open but nothing came out.

“Straight shooting kid,” said the man behind her on the stairs. He had a knife too, and Elias spotted another one on his belt. He wore a padded coat and heavy-looking pants held up by an armored belt. His hair was shaved back and a couple scars ran up to one of his ears.

The young woman didn’t respond. Her eyebrows were drawn tight like they were in conference.

Elias forced himself to say something. “Isabel?”

Her eyebrows drew conspiratorially closer. “What’s it to you?” she snarled.

Elias’s breath came in shuddering waves. Gods it was _cold_. Not a bad casting at all.

“You’re in danger,” he managed.

“I look fine to you?” She turned and, after a moment, Sai fell flat on his face. He curled moaning. She turned back. “Am I going to have to kill you?”

“Let’s not fight here,” Elias said. He gestured around him.

She and Rane approached. She fell on her haunches beside him. “Why fight at all old man?” she asked.

“Good question,” he said. “I’d applaud you if I had use of my hands. All I wanted was to talk to you.”

“Well,” she said. “You’ve done that. So you going to go home and leave us to our business now?”

“I also hoped to speak with your master if I could.”

“My master?” she asked. She followed his nod and scowled. “That’s—”

But while her gaze was turned, he murmured a phrase and the ice turned to water. He flew up to his feet, took a step, and - when she had just turned back and started raising her hands - shoved her and Rane through the wall.

The three of them tumbled outside into the pouring rain. They were in an alleyway formed by Rane’s long building and a taller, longer, half-collapsed structure.

The whole street was halfway underwater in mud. When Elias fell into it his whole attire soaked. It felt warm after the ice-bath.

Discovering he still had his cane in his hand, he got to his feet. He tried to take a few calming breaths while Isabel swore her way to her knees. Her gaze went to him. To say that the beautiful young woman of just a moment ago was now a mess was an understatement.

“You fucker,” she said.

Rane was up now too. He had his long knife in one hand and a short dirk in the other. He looked less upset than her

“Cover me Bel!” he shouted. He charged.

Isabel threw the same spell, so this time it was easily thrown aside. Fool him once and all that.

Elias had to backpedal to avoid Rane’s first few blows—sloshing through the mud. Then he melted the dirk into molten material and the man screamed, dropping it. But, miraculously, he was able to deliver an attack with the other blade and Elias had to catch that arm with his free hand. With a deft use of arcane force, he shattered Rane’s wrist.

The man fell screaming. He landed on his knees, the hand that had been holding the dirk plunged deep into the mud. Elias turned the water sloshing about him to ice, freezing him in place. He didn’t seem to mind or notice, screaming as he was.

“ _Rane!_ ”

A wild, not-totally-formed flurry of magical spells and missiles assaulted Elias. Though he dispelled or didn’t need to dispel most of them, the sheer volume and speed of the attacks left him taking a few hits. He had to extinguish a fire on his cloak that wouldn’t go out in the water and the breath was driven out of him when a fist of arcane force slammed into his stomach, doubling him over.

By the Light! It might have just been her emotion convincing him, but a few years in Dalaran with a half-competent master and she wouldn’t be a bad mage.

Had Melissa known? Had his errant sister known the talent she had birthed?

But to Elias she wasn’t that dangerous. She was like a burst pipe and her initial savagery quickly gave way to exhaustion. She drained herself too quickly and suddenly. She unfroze Rane but Elias refroze him before he was even able to get up. When that happened, something seemed to change in Rane.

“Knock it off, kid!” he yelled at her. “Cool it! He’s got us all right?”

She didn’t at first. She kept coming doggedly on, throwing spells at him whenever she could muster up the power, trying to diversify her attacks to trip him up. But she only had a few, and only one or two that were practiced enough to make him wary. Once Elias got a good enough read on her, it was simple to shut her down. Her repertoire was far too limited for a duel.

“Listen to him Isabel,” Elias said. “I’m not here to hurt you. Can you hear me? _I’m not going to hurt you!_ ”

She finally stopped. She ended up on her hands and knees, gasping, her hair hanging in soaked strands in the mud. Elias dropped his hands. The only sound was the rapid-fire rain hitting the pool.

Rane interrupted with a moan and his upper body - which wasn’t frozen - bent over even further.

“Let him go,” Isabel said. Her head stayed down. “Please.”

Elias didn’t. “I’m sorry we had to meet like this Isabel,” he said. “I’m very sorry indeed.”

She looked up. Her expression was hostile and it hurt Elias to see, because he saw Melissa in there. Melissa when she had been young and when he hadn’t been ashamed of her.

“Who the _hell_ are you?” she said. “What do you want?”

His cane found purchase in the cobble and he leaned on it. “My name is Elias. I’m your uncle.” He smiled. “Your mother was my little sister.”

The surprise only lasted for a moment. Then the hostility returned even worse. “Fuck off,” she said.

“I’m telling you the truth. Your mother was Melissa Thorington. Your father - if you ever knew him - was a man named Rich—or Richard. Your mother was killed by undead. Forsaken.”

“You don’t know shit!”

“Do you know why Forsaken hunted your mother?”

“You don’t know _shit!_ ”

Was there something about the lower class that they needed to repeat themselves to get their point across?

“But I do know shit Isabel Thorington. I know that they didn’t just kill your mother. I know that they took out her eyes and tongue first and that they whipped her for a long while afterwards. They killed her by cutting out her stomach. I found her like that, and I imagine you did as well.” He hesitated. “I did not know that you survived. I would have found you sooner if I had.”

Rane stared at him like he’d grown three more heads. Isabel looked frozen as if hit by a temporal spell.

“Holy fuck,” she whispered. Her teeth started chattering and her jaw closed to stop them. She didn’t say anything for a while. Then: “Thanks for that reminder old man.”

“And do you want to know _why_ the Forsaken were after her?”

Another long pause. She glanced at Rane, and a look passed between the two that Elias didn’t understand. He had an urge to freeze Rane solid - inside and out - but something about that look stayed his hand.

Things were delicate. He didn’t want to lose her.

He _couldn’t_ lose her.

“No,” she finally said. The way she said it was simple. “No, I don’t.” She turned back to Elias. “But they took the body after. You know that too old man? You know where they took her?”

Elias smiled sadly. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I know.”


	7. Chapter 7

The graveyard was extensive. Hidden by a copse of trees, it sprawled just east of the mansion proper. Old spells Elias had strengthened kept anything that big from growing within the perimeters of the yard. Other wards were deactivated so they could enter. The wearing-away effect of the rain was also neutralized by spells, and the most powerful of all the magic wrought in the graveyard was fixed at each grave and tombstone (some of which stretched all the way back before the Troll Wars, when there had been no spells at all, for there had been no human mages).

Spells against necromancy. Wards against the undead.

They appeared in a grove near the graveyard. Isabel had insisted on washing in a stream and changing before she came.

Elias had expected her to head straight for their destination. But when they approached the gates - girded in new coats - she slowed and looked up and read off the ancient stone.

“ _Here lie Thoringtons_ ,” she said.

They wandered the graveyard. Elias let Isabel lead the way. She looked over tombstone after tombstone, each seemingly more magnificent, ancient and with more writing than the last.

“Sir Jonas,” she murmured. “Kalassandre. Lord Marai.” She looked past the gravestones and into the darkness ahead. “How far on does it go?”

“A while,” he said.

Isabel took her time. The dead leaves under her slippered feet crumbled and broke with every step she took. In time she returned to herself.

“Can you take me to my mother?”

Elias nodded. He led her deep into the graveyard.

A small, untouched plot eventually made itself apparent. It was off the main path. He stopped just in front of it, turned to Isabel and extended a hand. She stepped towards the tombstones.

The two biggest sat side-by-side. One read _Lord Ranald Thorington_ and the other _Astrelsa Lanshire Thorington_.

When she looked to him in askance, Elias nodded. “Your grandparents,” he said.

Beside them a ways was a third gravestone. Isabel stared at it for a moment that stretched on and on. It was a cool, rainy evening that smelled of nightsbane.

Then she spoke out loud: “ _Melissa Thorington. Adored daughter, sister and mother. She has been missed._ Did you do these?”

Elias nodded. “I’ve no talent for stonework. But a mage’s craft makes up for many failings.” He smiled. “Your mother was ostracized from the family because of you. I first of all was quick to condemn her. When I learned of your coming I never spoke with her again.”

She looked down. “It’s funny how things change, isn’t it?” she said. “For us.”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s funny.”

Elias watched his niece stand in front of her mother’s grave. Her head was hung, and he wondered if she was praying. Somehow, he doubted it. She passed a hand over her face and took a breath.

In time, she turned away. The grouping had a fourth gravestone. It caught Isabel’s eye and she made her way towards it. This time, Elias joined her at its foot.

The gravestone was there and it already had its inscription. It was a simple one, with just a name and no epithet. But the actual grave in front of it had been dug up. No, not dug up, Isabel saw. Just empty.

“You dug your own fucking grave?” she said.

“I have contingencies in place. To put me to rest if ever I fall.”

“But what about the others? How will anyone get in with your wards?”

He shrugged. “I’ve named a few who will have access,” he said. “My brother and his children chiefly, whose fate I still know not. And yours.”

Her breath puffed. “Well, thanks for that. I won’t have to fight my way in if you bite the dust.”

A quiet. The trees around the graveyard shook like elders in a fever.

“If I should die,” Elias said. His voice was simple. “You are the heir to all of this.”

Isabel looked to meet his gaze. Then she looked around at all the graves—at the whole graveyard, and beyond the graveyard; the woods that made up - in part - the whole estate of the Thoringtons, all its rolling hills and streams and manor and buildings and other things she had not even seen yet but could only imagine because of the breadth of the land. She could not see an end to it.

She looked back down at Elias’s grave. “Fuck,” she said.


	8. Chapter 8

A long time ago Lionel Grisby had hated the rain. It had been a cruelty to him - had set the chill in his bones and kept him awake all the night long. In Lordaeron it didn’t rain as it did in Gilneas, so downpours were not something he had worried about all the time. But when they did come around they came with a fury. Lionel would grit his teeth and watch the cold rain drown his fields and seep into his marrow and heart. It was good for his crops but not good for him.

But now Lionel didn’t mind the rain. He didn’t mind much now. The eternal drizzle that seemed determined to sink the Gilnean Peninsula into the sea would not cease day or night but he did not mind.

What he did mind was the meeting he rode to. He dreaded it.

He had ridden hard the night the boy talked. His squirming had been a source of amusement for Lionel, but he rarely took as much pleasure from such things as the others did and certainly not like Sileen. There had been something positively demonic about that woman and the way her cracked and gnarled fingers ran themselves through the boy’s hair and along the edges of his eyes.

Lionel did not fear much any more, but he would not have liked to have been in the boy’s shoes. Priestesses like Sileen were not only necessary but common in Forsaken companies. The Queen’s Flail was no different. Lionel’s personal tastes had nothing to do with policy.

Still, once the boy had talked, Lionel had left Sileen in charge. He had even left her the boy. How her eyes had lit up. Little had she known that he wasn’t doing her a kindness.

He’d ridden hard to meet the rest of his men deep in the forests but he’d still been careful about his tracks. Another thing he had come to appreciate about the rain. Not even mages could track through this mud.

Back with his unit Lionel had hurried to reach Erenton, sending his scouts and spies ahead. Lionel himself had been a Deathstalker before being promoted to his position in the Flail. He knew what he could learn even before he set up in wait around the sleepy town.

On arrival his stalkers reported back: the girl was there and she’d inherited some of her uncle’s arcane juice. But they’d been too slow. Thorington had beaten them to her.

It was that news that Lionel now dreaded sharing. He’d given strict orders to keep an eye on the town and the brothel she’d been working, then hurried north towards the Wall. He hadn’t slept. Hell, he hadn’t slept in months.

Another benefit of service to the Queen. Lionel didn’t mind it at all.

He had no idea where the Flail itself was at the moment. The Commander could have ordered it back to battle but that didn’t seem likely. The war had puttered out to a putrid, poorly-tasting stalemate. The fighting was all in skirmishes now. The war wasn’t going to end until the Queen gave the order. Until then they were merely to contain by presence. The Flail was just another company of Forsaken carrying out the Queen’s will. What the Commander was doing with the men now was a mystery to Lionel, though he hoped it had something to do with Thorington.

Aye, he wished that. He was no Sileen, but he still wished for more of that damned mage’s family to rip apart. He’d already cost the Flail so much. It was far past time the breather died.

And he was ashamed to know that he had failed to take the piece he had been ordered to take. Thorington’s bitch had gotten away.

Lionel rode until he caught sight of some light. Drawing on the reins he urged Matthias to a slower trot. He drew his blade and approached.

The woods opened up a mite. Cradled by three huge tree trunks, a shack sat dilapidated and proud. Lionel couldn’t stop the memory. Back in Lordaeron he had known men like this. Men who raised their families far from the cities and even the farms. Men who hunted game for food and sport and spat at your feet when you asked them why they didn’t start themselves a field. Dead shots with bow and arrow, but backwards people who didn’t much care for the company of anyone who wasn’t as backwards as they. Lionel had always imagined that the real reason they built their homes and their shacks so far from everyone else was for more sinister reasons. Why else would a man spurn his fellows? What could he be doing other than hiding?

Lionel drew Matthias up to a tree. He glanced again at the shack and spat phlegmy rainwater at it. He dismounted and tied Matthias, patting the horse’s patchy, ragged frame before he made his way towards the shack. He took the bag with him.

The yard - little as it was - was filled with portions and bits of corpses. They were mostly human, but Lionel again noted the dismembered wolf’s leg, its gray fur red in the dim light. But he’d seen these things before. He nodded to the guard at the door and entered.

The shack was lit by oil lamps. There were a few more guards inside and they all ignored him, standing as stiff as—well, as death. They were all Deathstalkers and Lionel knew at least one of them. The Flail favored the shadow warriors of the Forsaken above all the others.

There were more bodies inside as well. One slumped against a wall, her guts spilling out of her stomach, her head split open at the jaw that made it look like she had a mouth that was open impossibly wide. A man without ears lay flat on his face in what Lionel guessed had once been the kitchen. Something welled up in Lionel—a calm but disturbed voice asking why the bodies hadn’t been moved since the last time he had been here.

Move them? Why? Lionel held back a chuckle. Besides, who knew when they might need them?

His captain was seated at the dining room table. Commander Horace of the Queen’s Flail had his weapons on the table, an array of knives and swords and one huge, defiled, double-faced, one-handed hammer. He was coating them one by one in a thick, sticky oil. Two vials of it - one filled and the other nearly empty - sat in front of him like two spice-shakers.

“Join me Lionel,” Horace said. He had a rasp like part of the inside of his throat had peeled off and flapped when he spoke. Otherwise his voice was impossibly deep. “And speak.”

Lionel did as he was bid. He explained everything that had happened from the moment their nets had stumbled on Owen to the layout of Erenton.

“And Arnald? Is he up yet?”

“No sir.” He took the opportunity to pull the bag off his shoulders and dump Sileen’s head onto the table.

Horace sighed. He gave her a short look and then returned to his weapons. “Thorington?”

“Aye sir. She gave every manner of excuse when I asked about Arnald. She even said that there were wards. She claims it was hell getting him out.”

Horace grunted, as if to tell him what he thought about _that_ little turn of speech.

“I thought as such,” Lionel said. “But she couldn’t get him up.”

The commander picked up a knife and ran the brush he was using to paint the oil along its edge. He rotated the blade to keep the strands of oil from falling to the table.

“A Handmaiden is scheduled for a trip to this side of the wall,” Horace said. “I’ll see what I can do about Arnald. He’d more than make up for Sileen’s loss.”

“Aye.” A tingling beneath his loose flesh. _Handmaiden._

“As for Thorington, I am disappointed. To allow him to gain the girl is to let him recover from all the blows we’ve dealt him so far. We can’t allow our losses to be so in vain.”

Lionel inclined his head. “My fault alone.”

“Yes,” Horace said. “But it can be rectified, but only by you alone. We are given opportunities at redemption every moment, Lionel. Will you seize this one?”

“Of course.” Lionel sometimes found Horace to be dramatic. But if the rumors were true Horace had died a paladin of the Light and had awakened to find the powers he had trusted in all his life to have abandoned him. And not only had they abandoned him; when the Light touched Horace now it burned like greasy fire.

Lionel didn’t consider his people to be sane as a rule. In his own case, after he’d been freed by Lady Windrunner he’d gone after his family and found his wife and little girl Orella. After seeing him raised as Scourge, his wife had flung herself and Orella from a cliffside.

But Horace was one of those special cases. Lionel wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Horace had been shattered in mind as well as in body.

Horace reached over and gave Lionel one of his vials. The Deathstalker took it with care. It was almost empty, but enough to coat a blade.

“I sense that not all of these players you watch are as noble as Thorington,” Horace said. “Perhaps a little kindness first is in order.” He gave Lionel a meaningful look. “Or should I be clearer?”

 _It wouldn’t hurt_ , Lionel thought. But he was wise enough to keep it to himself.

Yet he had an idea of what the commander meant. He couldn’t get to the girl directly any more, no more than he could get to Thorington himself. He couldn’t force his way out of this problem.

But he needn’t think he must. As Horace had said, there were more personalities at play now than just the old mage’s. Perhaps tactics that hadn’t worked on Thorington would work on the girl.

Or perhaps…

“Thank you Commander.” Lionel bowed. “I’ll return with his head.”

“You’d better,” Horace said. “If you don’t I’ll request yours in its stead.”

The words were casually spoken, but Lionel didn’t doubt their sincerity. He had already failed to catch Thorington. Another failure and he would be replaced. It only made sense. The Queen deserved no more failures.

But the voice that had cried out against the bodies in the shack now exclaimed in self-defense. It argued that self-preservation must be pursued. If he couldn’t kill Thorington - and that was a big question - then he would be buried, and be buried for good this time. The voice screamed at the horror of oblivion.

But why? Lionel wondered as he exited the shack and headed back to Matthias, who stood as motionless as a stone in the dark. Why shouldn’t he die, after so much failure? Why shouldn’t another take his place, one who was capable of stopping Thorington once and for all? Why shouldn’t he support the removing of this black thorn in the Queen’s side?

Hadn’t he once done the same? How many pigs had he slaughtered the in preparations for winter? How could he stand in the way of the Banshee Queen’s will?

He wasn’t sure if his nose worked as it once had or not, but the scent of the vial in his hand now was unmistakable. Perhaps it was merely a shadow cast by the knowledge he already possessed. But it was sickly sweet in his mind’s nose. He knew the smell.

Wolfsbane.


	9. Chapter 9

Owen was still asleep when they returned to the mansion. He was in Elias’s guest room and the snoring prompted Elias to close the door.

The uncle and niece entered a room with a vaulted ceiling. Long chairs and couches populated the room in addition to small tables.

“Would you like a drink?” Elias asked.

She nodded. In a few moments two glasses and a bottle floated soundlessly into the room. Elias caught them and placed them on a table. He filled the glasses midway and handed her one. She nodded again and put away most of it in one go. Elias sipped it and sat back in a chair. She guessed that it was his favorite chair. She remained standing.

“When are we going?” she asked. “I want to get back.”

Elias swirled his wine. Gods, it was exactly how Isabel had imagined nobles did it.

“Back to your procurer?” he mused.

She whirled on him so fast the wine slopped out of her glass. “It’s not like that!” she shouted. “I’m no one’s property.”

Elias chuckled. He didn’t seem bothered. “No? I suppose you’ll tell me your maidenhead is intact as well.”

“That is no business of yours.”

“No. Only your man’s, I suppose.”

“By the Light!” she exclaimed. “You must be worse than my mother was. I’m not his property. I might not have been raised _here_ ,” she gestured around the room, “but my mother taught me some things that no one in Rane’s house was taught. I wasn’t told to walk with my ass in the air and my nose turned from anyone who didn’t have blue blood. But I wasn’t raised a fool.”

“You weren’t raised a fool.” That echo hung in the air for a moment. “And I suppose now is the time you tell me that you love him?”

The empty air seemed to thrum between them in the silence that followed.

“And you would know _what_ of love?” Isabel demanded. Elias put down the glass, stood up and threw up his hands. “Well? I do. I know love when I taste it. I love Rane. And you know what else, uncle? You know what else, Rod-Up-His-Ass Elias? He loves me too.”

Elias whirled. “ _Look around you!_ ” The booming echo of his voice reverberated beneath their feet. “You have no idea who you are.”

“I know exactly who I am.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Who are you?”

Isabel snorted. She turned away and turned back. “I love him,” she said again. “I’m no one’s whore.”

“Your mother thought the same.”

“My _mother_ ,” she said through her teeth, “was not a whore.”

“No? Then where was _her_ love? Where was your father? Tell me that Isabel. I see your mother in every word you speak and every action you take. I won’t let you make the same mistakes she did. She wouldn’t either if she were here.”

“You don’t know my mother.”

“I was there the day she was born.”

“I love him!” she yelled still again. “If you want me to tolerate you then you’ll have to accept that. If you want me to deal with _this_ ,” she looked up and around for his benefit, “then you will accept him as you will accept me.”

“That man will never step within a mile of this estate.”

“You are a fool,” she said.

Elias seemed to rise in stature. His eyes sparked themselves to blueish light and the already-dark room shrank around him. Isabel took an involuntarily step back—then dug in her heels.

“The man who fucks you with no promises and cheap gifts is my enemy. Whatever he’s done for you has been to get you alone and to get you in bed. I’ve hesitated to say it only because you are my niece. You are the blood of my blood. And with your mother gone and your father having long abandoned you, I am your caretaker. You are hardly of age. You are a child and you are acting as one. So it is that I cannot condemn you too harshly. But the man who takes advantage of my child - of my sister’s child - he I can condemn. He I can damn. You are not a street urchin Isabel. You are a Thorington and I will treat you as such. You are not to leave this house. You are never again to see Rane. You may write him letters if you wish, and I will deliver them and we will see what the future holds. But if he comes within a mile of you - and you should warn him of this - then I will kill him. If you truly love him, then this is your chance to prove it. It is also his. Or do you know exactly how he will respond when he knows he will no longer have you under his thumb?”

Isabel’s jaw was set. Elias could practically see the gears turning behind her eyes. She was trying to think of a way out—a way to defy him without confronting him. Gods, was this what it was like to raise a child? He gained a little more sympathy for Melissa.

“All right, _uncle_ ,” she said in a way that Elias knew that everything was far from all right. “I’d like to send Rane a message, if I could.”

“There’s paper, ink and quill in the study. I’ll show you there.”

“He can’t read,” she said. Her eyes dared him to laugh. “You’ll have to send the message yourself, I guess. Tell him about the mile rule.”

“Is there anything else you want me to tell him?”

“Yes,” she said. “Tell him that if he wants to communicate with me, he can dictate a message by Harold Cross. He’s the cheapest scribe in town.”

“I’ll go immediately,” Elias said. He dropped his glass and it floated towards the kitchen. The bottle followed a moment later. He turned to her.

“Isabel,” he said, hesitating. “I mean what I say. The Forsaken are still hunting you. They will be hunting you for the rest of your life, or until Gilneas is rebuilt and many other things are put right. This goes beyond a love I am forbidding. Here you are safe. Beyond the walls of this mansion, you are not. I don’t have to remind you of what happened to your mother do I?”

To say that Isabel’s rebellious demeanor slipped for a moment would be untrue. Her posture didn’t change and her expression didn’t soften. But when she said, “No,” Elias detected that she had understood his meaning. Love (or what she thought was love) was love, but the Forsaken were the Forsaken.

“I have your word you will stay in this manor?”

“Light! _Yes_. I will stay. Go to Rane already. If they’re after me, then they’ll be after him as well.”

Elias nodded. “He will be warned.”

And then the mage was off down a hallway. Isabel didn’t follow.

She wished that he had left the wine.

 


	10. Chapter 10

“She recommends Harold Cross,” Elias said. “Do you know him?

Rane smirked and nodded. “Aye, I know him,” he said. “I’ll get to him quick as you like. Well, quick as I can anyway. He’s a busy man and so am I. How long are you staying?”

The two of them were just outside Rane’s whorehouse. Elias had demanded an audience from the gateman and the girl (who wasn’t Lily this time, but another, older girl) and this time he was indulged. The girl ran, tripping over her skirt in the doorway. The guard barked at her to move it, and the two finally scurried inside. It seemed he had made a reputation for himself.

Rane had come out a moment later. None of the fear in the others’ eyes had been present in his. Elias recalled the fight and remembered how Rane had been the one to get Isabel to surrender. He’d been quick to see she was outmatched, quicker than Isabel herself was.

For a moment then - standing just to the side of Rane’s house, out of the way of the business of the girl and the watchman - for the first and only time, Elias wondered if he had misjudged Rane. Perhaps he really did feel more strongly about Isabel than he had thought. Elias had expected the man to study the ground when Elias suggested he get a scribe to write a message for her. Isabel was out of his hands and wouldn’t be making him any more money, or making his nights any more pleasant. Elias had expected him to shrug and imply the of the old line: “There’s plenty of beautiful women in the world.”

But his behavior prompted Elias to reconsider. And it was in that vein of regret that Elias warned Rane of the reason why he had taken Isabel away.

“Forsaken?” Rane spat on the road, missing his own boot only narrowly. Elias was acutely aware of the fact that he had not bathed as Isabel had. “Let ‘em come. They won’t get nothing from me, that’s a fact. I lost my da to the war you know. My ma too.”

Elias nodded. “They’ve taken much from us,” he said. He couldn’t quite get himself to offer condolences.

“Well they’ll take no more here,” Rane grunted. “Count on that boss.”

“I will. When will you have that letter ready?”

The hesitation - however slight - was enough to reignite Elias’s suspicions and biases on the mud-blooded man before him. “Aye boss, I’ll have it for you in two days,” he said. “That please you?”

“I’ll return then. Watch for shadows.”

Rane tapped his forehead in some bizarre salute or sign of respect that he didn’t recognize. Elias just inclined his head to the man and went his own way.

Rane still didn’t feel right in his mind. And why not? A whoremaster who falls in love with one of his girls? Who’s willing to pursue her even when she’s gone? If he’d heard it second-hand, he’d have called it a fairy story.

But perhaps there was a simpler explanation. Perhaps Rane was now after her money. After all, Isabel had appeared to have used her family name more than once; that was how they were all in this mess in the first place. He was willing to commit to her because of who she was. That was a story Elias was willing to believe. Greed fit Rane much better - to a tee, in fact.

Unfortunately, Elias didn’t know how right he was.


	11. Chapter 11

Somewhere in the house a door creaked open. Isabel barely heard it herself - she was half asleep on the couch, the retrieved bottle of wine drained down to a quarter of its former glory. The sound of the door opening was like the ringing of a gong, its echoes running through the huge mansion that reminded her so much of a yet-vacant tomb.

Murmuring half-hearted curses at Elias, she rolled over and pulled the blankets closer. It was drafty. She’d thought about getting up to look for a bedroom, but by the time the thought had crossed her mind she had already well-insulated herself with blankets and had been loathe to leave her spot.

She’d had a lot of thoughts of what she ought to do. Not five minutes after Elias had left, she had started to imagine ways of escaping back to Erenton and Rane. To the Void with her uncle and his speech; she was being held prisoner here and she’d be damned if she didn’t see it that way. That Elias was her uncle she didn’t doubt (there was too much of her mother’s blue-blooded vanity in him), but it was hardly a rare thing when uncles were less kind than your parents. What was to stop Elias from treating her worse than Rane ever had?

That was what she had thought. But after Elias had taken her on the tour of the graveyard, her perspective had changed. It was one thing for her mother to go on about the age and power of House Thorington. It was another to walk among her ancestors’ graves.

That this had been Elias’s plan she had no doubt. He wanted her to take responsibility for who she was and awe her with the sight of hundreds of years of Thoringtons, of whom - if Elias was to be believed - she and her uncle were the last.

But even that hadn’t changed how she saw things. After paying her respects at her mother’s grave - she owed the self-righteous witch at least that - she hadn’t planned on hesitating to get back to Rane. She hadn’t intended on compromising.

It was that last grave that had done her in. She should have just ignored it and walked past. But the empty hole had drawn her curiosity and she’d read the damned inscription.

_Sir Elias Thorington._

Looking at him then, she’d seen him as if for the first time. Clearly and without bias. She saw him standing there, smirking self-deprecatingly at the foot of his own plot; the mage in the heavy coat, though he didn’t look like a magus then. He looked like an old man who had nothing but death to keep him company in his huge, empty mansion and his sprawling, untended estate. She wondered why he had never married.

She thought of the calm way he had stormed Rane’s inn and a bizarre idea struck her like lightning. It was simply too much - too brazen to believe on something as small as suspicion.

But what if it was true? What if he was impotent?

The irony of the theory wasn’t lost on Isabel. Gifted with power that common men could only dream of wielding and he was helpless to procreate. And perhaps there was a doubly ironic helping: That he - who could not continue the line - was the last male heir of a decimated dynasty.

Perhaps none of these thoughts (which assailed her as she stood before her uncle’s grave) would have affected her so strongly if it had been the first time they had overwhelmed her. But it was not. She had seen the face of Elias’s noble doom before. It had been on her mother’s face, and it had been there as long as she had known her. It had made Melissa Thorington impossible to live with and nearly impossible to love. Elias’s quip that she was a whore like her mother had cut more deeply than Isabel had dared let on. Because what had a young Isabel thought of her mother as if not a disgraced slut?

And it was that same doom that Isabel saw again. When Melissa Thorington told her daughter of the great heritage she had been born of all Isabel had been able to think of was how she had been born the way she had. And certainly her mother knew it and by knowing it was a hypocrite. Melissa trying to convince herself that she was a Thorington and a noblewoman and that she was raising a noble girl.

She saw that in Elias’s grave. That he was trying to convince himself that he was his family’s savior… and knowing that that was exactly what he was not.

_If I should die…_

So she had stayed. Damn him to undeath, she had stayed. She would not abandon Rane, but now she couldn’t abandon Elias either. Like she hadn’t been able to abandon her mother.

It was with these thoughts that she had made company for herself. She added the presence of the wine, which she had had to retrieve from the pantry, and had curled up on one of the couches long enough for her to lay comfortably. Her lover, her uncle and her mother wandered the walkways of her mind as she drank and slipped in and out of slumber.

The opening of a door somewhere in the house intruded on her dreamy, sleepy self. She recoiled from it and buried herself more deeply in the cushions and blankets. By all the gods, it was drafty in here, but she had never enjoyed a couch so comfortable in all her life. She could only dream about what the beds here must have been like. Perhaps this whole noble business wouldn’t be so bad.

The soft sound of _clink dink_ drew her back from the edge of sleep. With a moan she rolled over. If Elias was forcing her to stay here, then she would have access to the alcohol. She would make it clear that this was non-negotiable.

But it wasn’t Elias that was taking away the drink. When Isabel shifted to speak, she saw Owen standing over her, frowning his Owen frown at the wine bottle in his hand.

“There’s more in the pantry,” she murmured to him, and made to roll back over.

But he jumped like he had been struck. Isabel watched in a sort of comical disbelief as the bottle tumbled out of his hands, flipped once, and landed with a crash on the floor.

On Owen’s face, shock suddenly gave way to fright. “I’m sorry Miss Isabel,” he said. He immediately went to his knees and started to pick up the pieces of glass, faster than she would have expected of a servant. “I’m so sorry, I… I didn’t mean to wake you… I…” he trailed off, now picking up the pieces in softly whispering silence.

“It’s all right Owen,” she forced herself to say somewhat brightly. As brightly as she could, anyway. With an effort, she pulled off her blankets and crawled off the couch. “Let me help.”

“No, no. Please. No.”

“Owen, it’s all right. I was just resting, not sleeping. Watch yourself now. They’re sharp.”

As they picked up the shattered remnants of the bottle - which of course had gone to pieces instead of just snapping off in a few large fragments - she added that warning because he seemed recklessly quick in shoving the shards into the palm of his hand. She already saw one cut. He only had eyes for the floor and the glass. He was like a startled rabbit ready to bolt once it had cleaned up its mess.

“Oh, I’m sorry miss. I didn’t mean it, honest.”

“I know it Owen. Stop apologizing.”

He obeyed her command, though the guilt was as clear as it was spoken on his face. Once he had all he could carry he dashed for the pantry.

“Owen!” she called. He slowed to a stop and looked back. She indicated. “To the window. Elias doesn’t need to know.” And she winked at him, carrying her own pieces to one of the massive window panes that framed the woods and darkened sky so well. After a moment, he joined her.

The windows did open, as Isabel had suspected they did. But they were locked and it was a bit of an effort to force them up. Owen tried to intervene and force it open himself, but Isabel growled him off and he veritably leapt back. With his coordination and luck, he would shatter the pane from top to bottom. Then she would know what a _real_ draft felt like.

She finally got it to wheel open a crack and a damp coolness slipped in. She dumped her glass down into the rain. While Owen stepped forward to do as she had done, she went back and gathered the rest of the big pieces. Thinking herself more dextrous than she was, she slit one of her thumbs. Cursing under her breath, she swept the rest of the glass-crumbs under the couch with her boot.

She helped Owen close and lock the window again. Once she was sure it was as it had been, she gave Owen an encouraging smile.

Still, he looked anxious. “Do you think he’ll know?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Maybe.” She didn’t care, but when it was clear that Owen did she added, “I don’t think he keeps track of inventory.” She doubted he kept track of much in the place. How could he?

“Oh,” was all Owen said. Then, “I’m sorry I woke you.”

She forced a smile. “It’s fine Owen. Really it is. I’m sorry I scared you.”

“You’re not scary, miss Isabel.”

For some reason that made her really smile. “A girl likes to know that Owen. Thanks.”

He looked down, as if ashamed of the attention. Then he frowned, and he sounded upset. “You’re bleeding,” he said.

 _A girl_ doesn’t _like to know that_ , she thought. She tried to wave his concern away and realized she was doing it with her bleeding hand. Thumb, at least. It did sting.

“I’m fine,” she told him. “It’s just a little thing.”

“Can you fix it?”

Her smile slipped sideways up her cheekbone. “Hm?”

“Can you…” He looked at a loss for words, so he used his hands. They were even more confusing. They were rotating around each other. “Magic?” he tried.

Her tongue clicked the roof of her mouth. “Oh,” she said. “No. The arcane can’t do much in the way of healing. Or at least, I don’t think it can. Perhaps Elias knows a healing spell. But I know very little.”

“You knew enough to get him back home,” he said.

Again, Owen’s slipshod way of talking took her a moment to decipher. “Oh,” she said again, and felt her face warming itself. “I just surprised him is all. It weren’t nothing special. He handed me my ass on a platter once he got going.”

The look on Owen’s face was priceless. She imagined that he had just unintentionally visualized the expression.

“So,” she shifted the subject. “How the hell did you get mixed up with my uncle?” It still felt strange saying it out loud. _My uncle._ “You’re not one of my long-lost relatives too, are you?”

Owen shook his head. Isabel imagined it flying off his neck and bouncing off down the hallway. “No,” he said. “He saved me. He was looking for you like they were.”

“Who’s they?”

“The dead people.”

Forsaken. Doh. “They were after you?”

“No,” he murmured. He rubbed the back of his neck. “They were after you.”

The night Isabel had lost her maidenhead (and it hadn’t been to Rane) had been the same night she had been hit with something like a carpenter’s board. It had stung and it had almost made her cry. It had overwhelmed her and she hadn’t really known what it was then, when the man had held her hair and kept her down, grunting like a man on the docks grunts when he goes about his work, throwing barrels over his shoulder and lugging crates and supplies. It had been that same kind of snort men make below their throat, where their chest meets their neck. He’d made that noise again and again

But what had really stung like the blow of a flat weapon hadn’t been any of that, or any noise he had made. What had stung had been the poison that leaked into her then - into her heart, that was. A poison of shame.

In some ways what she felt now, as Owen stood there rubbing the back of his broad neck, saying that the Forsaken hadn’t been after him but had been after her, was worse. It stung worse.

“Owen…” She realized that she had murmured. Clearing her throat, she said quietly, “I’m sorry. I’m _so_ sorry. How did they know you knew me?”

Owen shrugged. It was a very helpless gesture, like a fly might make upon discovering that it was a spider’s web that it had been caught in. “I don’t know,” he said, and he was so quiet that Isabel barely heard him. “I think… I don’t know.”

Isabel took a step forward. She carefully laid a hand on Owen’s arm. This time his eyes were the only thing that jumped. She saw for the first time that he had eyes like wet grass. She pulled him towards the couch and she sat him down beside her.

“Tell me everything,” she said. “Tell me about everything. Please.”

Owen shook his head again.

“No.” Isabel felt herself squeezing his arm and imagined it must have hurt, but Owen didn’t flinch. “Tell me. You have to. I have to know. What did they do?”

Owen looked bleakly up at her. Down at her, really. He had half a head on her even sitting down. “It isn’t for… a lady to hear.”

Isabel almost laughed, but it came up her throat hollow so she let it curl up and die there. Elias must have been rubbing off on him. Before she could stop herself, she was telling him, “It’s my fault. No, it is. Everything that happened to you was _my_ fault. You have to tell me what happened and how they found you. Everything.” She squeezed his arm again, lighter this time. “All right?”

Owen was looking down at where the bottle had landed and shattered. Other than a few scrapes in the floor, it looked good as new.

“All right,” he said.


	12. Chapter 12

Isabel listened to Owen’s story with a concealed but growing horror.

It quickly became clear to her that Owen had been a victim of chance and not design. The questions they had asked him - the questions they had forced into his mind, at least, and ripped up the floorboards of his sanity to find answers to - had been many and specific. Forsaken on this side of Gilneas were abducting vulnerable travelers and anyone who could be interrogated. They were asked basic questions about their family and their hometown and their abilities. Then they were asked about the name Thorington. If they knew a Thorington. If they had _heard of_ a Thorington. These questions were asked by dark priests.

And if their captives ever registered the name they were taken to gods-knew where (the abandoned ruins of Arnalda, perhaps) so that they could be interrogated further.

The way Owen told the story left Isabel without a doubt. The initial questions the Forsaken had asked of him had been concise and to the point, like they were reading from a script. A pre-ordained script, to be asked of all captives. A script that was designed to draw out one name.

The more Owen told her about the priestess and what she did to him, the sicker Isabel felt.

How many? How many innocent people had been taken off the roads by the Forsaken? How many had been tortured until they screamed that they knew nothing of the name Thorington? How many had said yes just to make it stop and discovered that worse fates awaited them?

Now she understood why Elias had told her not to leave. The Forsaken must have had people watching the mansion. They couldn’t have tortured so many Gilneans that they didn’t know where a prominent family’s estate was. The thought that undead spies had been watching her and Owen as they had dumped the broken glass out of the window turned her spine to ice.

And the worst by far: how many who were caught _knew_ the name Thorington? How much did they suffer for knowing that name? What was the price for every time Isabel had (and she hadn’t done this often, but she hadn’t thought much of it either) introduced herself as a Thorington? How many innocent people had she looked into the eyes of and spoken her name and damned them to a collar in a Forsaken camp?

That old poison coursed through her like fire urged on by the galloping of her heart.

All of Owen’s stammered apologies and “Excuse me Miss Isabel”s now paled even further before her own guilt. He told her everything. He told her everything and she let him—encouraged him, even, when he tried to downplay an event or skimp on a detail. She made him tell her everything. She deserved it.

How could she have been so blind? Even before Elias had come she had had the specter of her mother’s death. How had she thought that that was just a freak occurrence? Oh, it had been horrible, yes, but it had been the war. Wars were horrible.

But it _hadn’t_ been the war. It had been her. It had been _her_ fault. Everyone who had heard her name and everyone who had then heard it from someone she had told, and so on and so on until the collar—the collar and the dark priestess running her dead hands over your head and through you head and pricking your very thoughts as if with needles. Everyone she had ever told.

Including Rane.

Rane, who had taken her in. Rane, who gave her protection when her mother was gone. Rane, who loved her. Rane, who had invited her to help run his inn. Rane, who trusted her.

Owen had heard her name from Rane. When Owen recounted it, she remembered. She’d come outside, curious to see who it was that Rane was fencing for. That was the first and only time she’d ever met him until now. He’d been shy and Rane had generously introduced them. Owen, meet Isabel Thorington. Her stomach lurched violently now at the previously benign memory.

How could she have been so stupid? How could she have simply trusted Elias to warn Rane about the Forsaken? Maybe he’d put some wards up around the inn, but Elias hadn’t seemed all that concerned with her love’s safety. If Elias had had it his way, it seemed to her that he would have as soon sicced the Forsaken on Rane as protected him. Bang. That would take care of his niece’s childish love affair with the “whoremaster”. And then he could move her on to a more promising candidate. Fix up a marriage with an esteemed gentleman who had survived the war. But not too esteemed, she knew, so that Elias could swing a matrilineal union and thus preserve the Thorington name.

 _And allow the butchering of innocent people to continue in our name_.

How deftly he had tricked her. How easily. It enraged her to think about for even a moment. He’d shamed her into staying here with talk of her “whoring.” Now Rane was vulnerable.

She wouldn’t let it happen. She would make it clear to Elias: if Rane died then she would die with him. She’d see how her uncle felt about Rane then, wouldn’t she?

She had to get back to Erenton and before Elias came back. But how? She trusted Elias’s warning about the danger of going outside more than ever. Perhaps a mad dash to the teleportation ring was her only option. How else was she going to get to Erenton?

“Owen?” she said.

He stopped mid-sentence. She had stopped paying attention a while ago and she didn’t remember what he had been saying. “Yes?” he said.

“How did you get back here? Did you use the trees near the graveyard? Is that how Elias brought you here the first time?”

It didn’t make sense that Elias’s portal to the mansion was so far away from the mansion proper. It was out in the open. And even though the graveyard had its own wards and powers to keep out intruders, certainly it would have been safer to have been closer to the manor? Though she guessed that it _was_ possible the teleporters were old constructs he was using as best he could. Perhaps he had no control over where they were placed.

But she saw a torn look immediately surface in Owen’s face at her words. She was right.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Owen mumbled. “We used the trees near the graveyard.”

That tone wouldn’t have fooled a five-year-old. Still, that he was even trying to mislead her at all was a big indicator of his commitment.

She spun in her seat so that she was cross-legged and facing him. He was still facing forward, looking down and away from her, but she nudged closer.

“Owen?”

She could see the blush climbing up the ropes of his neck.

“Owen?” She touched his face and traced the top of his ear. “Can you look at me? Please?”

He did look, but slowly. She sped it along by cupping his chin with her other hand. He really didn’t have a bad jaw. It was the fact that it was slipping half-open all the time that made it unappealing.

“Hey.” She smiled her brightest for him. “You trust me don’t you? Don’t you, Owen?”

“Yes.”

“You really trust me? Do you trust Isabel?”

The wet grass of his eyes stared at her, as if enthralled. That poison came pounding, as if to burst from her skin. _Shame, shame, shame._

“I trust Isabel.”

“Good,” she said softly. “I trust you too Owen. There’s another way to teleport here, isn’t there? The way that you first came in.”

“I can’t tell you,” he said.

“Why not? Did Elias tell you?”

“Yes.”

She let herself laugh. “Elias doesn’t know what he’s doing,” she said. She leaned closer to him, as if taking him into her confidence. “He thinks I can’t handle a teleportation. I can, you know. It’s easy if it’s already set up. Is it set up already, Owen?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

He looked on the verge of tears. Like he was being forced to choose between two people he could not possibly choose between.

_SHAME SHAME SHAME._

“Owen,” she said. She had his head in his hands now. She could feel his face burning up. She could feel the texture of his hair and the soft, light stubble that was so unlike Rane’s scruff. “The dead people are going to hurt more people like they hurt you. They’re going to hurt Rane. I have to stop them.”

Owen nodded. He nodded his way off the couch. Isabel held his hand and let him lead her to the tower.


	13. Chapter 13

Elias _had_ built his own teleportation system. She studies the map in amazement.

Just how accomplished a mage _was_ he? How long had he been fighting the Forsaken? She was filled with wonder for her uncle then, but it quickly faltered when she considered what she was about to do.

Elias would come around, she told herself. Then… who knew? Maybe he would grant them his blessing. Rane didn’t even know his own last name; she couldn’t imagine him protesting too strongly about taking on hers. They could rebuild a dynasty. Elias could teach her how to become a mage in lieu of Dalaran. And they could continue the fight against the Forsaken. They could save their family and fight to protect Gilneas.

These dreams of a saved Thorington house and perhaps even of little Thoringtons - her own children! - running around the grim manor lit at last, again, by lights, pushed her forward. She imagined these things until she was certain of her course.

Once she was confident of what she needed to do to make the magic work she turned to Owen.

He was a tall specter against a sky that was darkening once again. Rain ran in rivers off the roof of the tower, as if framing the two of them in some romantic painting.

“Be careful, Isabel,” Owen said.

She grinned at him, her head full of dreams. “You have my promise,” she said, and she leaned up and kissed him at the corner of his mouth. She stepped back down and looked to see his reaction.

He did not react. His eyes hadn’t left her. For one bizarre, insane moment, Isabel’s smile faltered and she wondered if the kiss had happened at all.

 _Just shock is all. Bet he’s never even had a kiss before._ She returned to herself but nevertheless blew another kiss his way.

“I’ll be back!” she called.

Owen still hadn’t moved. The last image she had of him was him standing there like a titanic watcher, doing with his eyes what his mouth could never do justice.

Then he was gone.


	14. Chapter 14

Elias and Isabel missed it. But most of the people of eastern Gilneas didn’t.

Some would claim in the years following that they had seen an angel streak across the sky. Others insisted it had been of a more demonic origin, and it had traced green fire behind it as it went. Others still said it had been shooting star, an omen of some great beauty passing from the world.

Very few could say for sure what it had been. But most agreed that it had been a beautiful thing, whatever it had been. They would tell their children, and their children’s children, about the day they say the angel streak across the sky, like it was searching for a resting place.

 

***

 

Elias found Owen sitting on the couch. He was staring straight ahead as if some great and powerful thoughts were forcing their way through the tiny caverns that made up his mind.

“Evening Owen,” he said, entering the room. “Your sleep was well, I trust?”

It was when Owen didn’t answer at all that the dread first seeped into Elias’s stomach. He looked around, forced his smile back on and asked the boy, “Where is Isabel? Sleeping?”

Owen just sat there. He reminded Elias of those old statues in the capital and the stone monuments across the land that stared in one direction for all eternity, as if pondering great questions that the fleeting races below them could not even comprehend. Owen looked like he was thinking, and by the paleness of his face it looked like it had drained him terribly.

“ _Owen!_ ”

The bark shook the room, moved the table and set the tapestries and unlit sconces to shuddering. Even the rain outside seemed cowed, and total silence descended in the shadow of Elias’s bark.

It worked, though. Owen’s face turned up towards the old mage, his bottom lip protruding and making a gap for his mouth.

“Where is Isabel?”

“She said she had to protect him sir,” he said. “She had to stop them from hurting him like they hurt me. She—”

“Did you tell her about the tower?”

Before Owen had even finished the first bob of his head, Elias was rushing down the hallway. As if triggered by the violence of the action and the need for haste, Owen’s cry rang out through the mansion, like a little boy who had been struck in the face. A little boy who was always struck in the face and knew he deserved it. Elias - without even truly registering it (and would not have cared if he had) - heard a moan follow it and the heavy crash of a table being upended.

Elias ran down the long, unlit hallways. Owen took up the chase in a moment. Even though Elias took a few yards in a step, Owen caught up.

 

***

 

“Hey, pal—” the scrawny young man tried to step in front of him.

Elias snapped his wrist and the arcane force flipped the guard over like he’d been hit by a rolling chair. But that chair had been thrown with incredible power, and there was a second snapping sound as the guard landed, his left leg bent sideways and backwards. The guard gasped, his mouth opening wide enough to suck the moon.

Above, a window slammed open and a crossbow swung out. The window came crashing back with the weight of an ogre, splintering and crushing the crossbow against the warped wood of the building. With a cry, the crossbow was dropped, falling in pieces to the ground.

Lily ran down the muddy street.

With Owen a few, safe steps behind him, Elias - who had been a top pupil in his age range at Dalaran, and would have become an archmage without much fuss had it not been for the Third War - entered “Rane’s Inn” and began committing cruelties.

First, he picked out Sai and flicked a marble of glimmering red towards him. It ran in a remarkably straight line from the ball of Elias’s palm to Sai’s stomach, and by the time poor Sai had tensed, ready for a fight, the little marble reached him and exploded, expanding over him like a curtain being drawn up. Flames engulfed him head to toe and his muffled shrieks filled the room. They were drowned out by the accompanying screams of patrons and girls alike.

Next, Elias sealed the back door he had created the first time he had frequented this damned place by filling it with ice that was hard as diamond. Sai tried to run out that way, but he tripped, flailing, and landed on a woman twice his size instead.

A patron rose towards him. If Elias was being truthful, he had no idea if the man had intended to surrender, flee or attack him. He didn’t care. The tip of his black-eyed staff slammed into the back of his head. The man was driven into the wall, his brain matter spraying the wood.

“ _RANE! House Thorington calls!_ ”

There was a stumble and a crash above. Elias whirled in place and Owen - who had been about to enter through the doorway - scrambled out of his way. Elias rushed back outside.

Rane had landed on his side gripping a bag and a coat. He looked back, and when he did his eyes widened in their imitation of a mouth’s scream.

“You’re fast boss I’ll give you—” He tried to run.

Elias just shoved him. Rane flew forward with hands and arms wheeling around helplessly, his coat tapering in the rain and wind. He landed hard. Elias could hear the breath drive out of him.

And when he landed, the bag landed too. Its single buckle popped open. Gold spilled onto the muddy cobble, making a sound like the scattering of dice on glass.

At the sight Elias howled. He rushed forward and Rane was only able to roll over and gasp breathlessly before the mage was upon him.

“ _Where is she?_ ”

“I know where she is! I know where she is!”

“ _Where did they take her?_ ”

“Fuck’s sake, it’s in the woods! Out there! No! No! Listen to me!”

“ _You sold her! You—_ ”

“It was more! More than I’ve ever made with all my girls combined!”

“When I was young those who moved against their betters forfeited themselves to our punishment. We were _respected_. She should have been _respected_. She’s a _child_!”

“It’s a trap!” Rane screamed. “They’re going to try and trap you! I heard them… I…”

Elias placed his hand and staff on the man’s forehead and began carving, using the same technique he had employed to chisel the gravestones. It was a simple symbol, and once it had been well-known by the courts of Gilneas and the lands for leagues around the Thorington Manor.

Once, before the war had taken it all.

Rane shrieked and shrieked, but Elias Thorington held him down. Steam rose from his work. He released Rane in disgust and the man immediately doubled over and dunked his face in a puddle. Smoke sizzled in the mud and he raised his head up, gasping for air.

“Come Owen,” Elias said as he walked away, leaving Rane in the mud. Owen stared after the mage for a moment, then started to follow.

“Fucking sell-out,” came a gasped whisper. Owen stopped and looked back.

Planted on Rane’s forehead was a seal like the ones Owen had seen as a child when the herald would come through the town and show the king’s writ and symbol to the common folk. The seal on Rane’s forehead was a heavy-looking **_T_** encapsulated in a ring. Blood and melted skin dripped from it like hot wax. Rane’s eyes burned at him from their sockets.

Owen turned away and ran after Elias.


	15. Chapter 15

Even though he was taller and his legs were longer than Elias’s Owen had to almost jog to keep pace.

Erenton watched them as they walked their streets. Night had come again and it had come with vengeance in its heart. Lamps and torches were scarce and those that could be seen were either hidden in their houses or otherwise protected from the downpour. People watched them go but with less interest than Owen remembered previously. Even he did not catch any glares. This time they were only a passing interest to the commoners; a curiosity to be picked up and regarded for a moment and then discarded. To Owen, it felt worse than being hated.

“Why did you do that to Rane?” he asked.

Elias did not slow in his quick march. His head did not turn either. “It’s a reminder,” he said.

“For what?” Owen asked.

“For what names mean, boy. I want them to see and hear about Rane and know the weight of my name.”

Owen thought about this. Then he said, slowly, “It’s very important to you, isn’t it?”

“My name?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not that it is important to _me_. There is a value to every thing just as there is a value on bread and land. Let me ask you something boy. Consider two peddlers: One sells you his bread for a price that is less than its worth. You get it for cheap, say, and the peddler accepts the little coin you give him and is on his way. But the second peddler bargains with you. He demands full price for the bread, for he worked hard to prepare it for you. He takes pride in baking his bread and asks you for twice what the first peddler asked.

“Tell me Owen. Which of the two peddlers is wise?”

Owen had been led well. “The second.”

“Yes, the second. Such it is with names. My family has striven for centuries to maintain ourselves. We’ve built a legacy and we’ve helped the Greymanes build Gilneas into a strong nation. We’ve led armies and thrown back trolls and orcs throughout our history. We’ve ruled these lands and its peoples as best and as fairly as we could. House Thorington has always stood tall.

“But now look around you. We are ignored and spat at. We’re reviled and hated. Ever since I stood against them in my family’s name, the Forsaken have hunted me like…” there was a dark silence, “…like boar. And not only me, but any Thorington they come across. They hate me, for they have paid a heavy price for me. They think I’m worth far less than I am, but I am not the first peddler, Owen. I am not a fool. They are not worth me. The price is too high and they cannot pay.

“We go to a trap. But we are not fools to do so; fools would walk away and freely give their name for no cost at all. But Isabel is a Thorington, Owen. Mark me and mark what you see tonight, for you are about to see a wise peddler do business.”

They had exited the town. Elias hadn’t slowed at all as he had spoken. He was marching directly for the welcoming arms of the woods, wide open like the cloaked arms of a dark figure.

“They won’t hurt Isabel,” Owen said. He was sure of this. “They don’t want her. They want you.”

Owen waited for the mage to answer.

He never did.

 


	16. Chapter 16

The clearing looked like it had once been a part of a lumberyard. Stacks of half-decayed logs slumped on top of each other at one end near the remains of a mill that had long ago burned down. Stumps of various shapes stuck out of the brushy earth like pimples on a bearded face. At the edges of the clearing the trees closed ranks again like soldiers ready to sell their lives dearly if the lumber mill ever started up again.

Owen followed Elias right into the clearing.

He really hadn’t yet considered his part in what was about to happen. He had followed the mage out of habit rather than a desire to fight by his side. He imagined that Elias would do to the undead people what he had done to Rane’s house. He would go in with a few flashy spells (maybe some _really_ flashy ones, better even than the ones he’d half-seen in his semi-conscious state back in Arnalda), blow the undead people away and rescue Isabel and all would be forgiven. The three of them would return to the manor and everything would be all right. And if Isabel was hurt then Owen would help Elias nurture her back to health. And if there was a dark priestess again, Owen would hold Isabel’s hand and help her through that too. It had happened to him, so he thought he might be able to help her shake the scary thoughts. He’d gotten better and she would too.

As the two entered the clearing, Owen saw a very tall man standing on its opposite extreme. He had in his hands a very long and heavy-looking sword. Wild hair fell from his head and what looked like an ancient nobleman’s coat hung from his body in rags.

Owen was so entranced by this figure that he at first didn’t understand the breath that escaped Elias in front of him. He didn’t understand that it was something between a gasp and a sigh—or that it soon turned to a growl, growing in his throat with the fury of some wild animal.

It wasn’t until the giant gave a shout and raised his blade to the sky. But when Owen’s eyes were drawn upwards, he saw.

Isabel hung from the trees like a star in the night. She still swayed in the wind and rain. Limp. Owen couldn’t tell because of the distance and the rain, which made it difficult to see, but he thought that maybe she didn’t look the same as the Isabel he remembered.

Then he realized that this was because the Isabel he remembered had not been gotten a hold of by the undead people. There was a reason he did not recognize this Isabel.

The Isabel he remembered had been pretty.

The giant with the huge blade roared again and Owen cried out when Elias answered him with a long, ear-splitting howl. The mage raised his head to the sky, and his hood fell back as he did. The staff with the black gem at its tip thrummed with a power that hurt Owen’s ears. There was a sharp crack like a whip and a shape took form in the center of the clearing, a shape bigger even than the giant with the sword who stood under Isabel.

_Isabel…_

Growing up, Owen had often been told that he was incapable of understanding things, especially abstract things. They thought he was fel-touched—that he’d been born with his brain upside-down. He had often been ignored and when people explained matters and events to his father or his friends, they wouldn’t bother addressing their explanation to him. And why should they have bothered? Owen was a dullard. He wasn’t capable of grasping certain things.

It was true that Owen’s mind was not as others’, but when he arrived at a conclusion of his own, or when he finally brought himself to an understanding on a subject, this understanding was not lesser. For Owen, comprehension was slow-coming but total.

So it was now when Isabel’s fate came crashing down on him like tons of water from a broken dam. It utterly crushed him. He fell. The world spun as if he had been struck from behind with a club. Wet fronds tickled his face.

_Isabel…_

_Do you trust me? Do you trust Isabel?_

_Yes._

That brilliant, blinding smile. _I trust you too Owen._

Fists - not unlike the hairy fists of his father - replaced his hands. And this time, when Elias Thorington howled to the sky, Owen joined him with a scream of his own. He scrambled to his feet and ran after the mage. Elias pulsed in the clearing like a candle-flame in a dark room.

Undead flooded the woods. A small sea of crossbow bolts sailed ahead of them and Owen actually dropped to his face again in terror at the sight. But when nothing hit him he looked up again and saw that the bolts were being thrown back as if a hundred invisible hands had plucked them. Owen scrambled to his feet to join Elias. The undead came on.

The golem was up now. Its earthy frame was well-endowed with rainwater and a muddy exterior. It was lopsided and immediately received some punishment from crossbow bolts that were not turned away. It whirled towards the largest mass of undead and began its work.

“ _Arnald Hard-heart!_ ” Elias exclaimed, and Owen thought that something in his voice sounded strange. “ _You face Sir Elias Thorington! I’ll guide to your rest once again ancient one!_ ”

If Arnald had heard him he ignored him. The giant was rapidly closing the distance between himself and the mage. He roared incoherencies. A curtain of flames opened and swung across the battlefield, and anything it touched ignited as if it were made of the highest quality pitch. The sound of the dying and the smell of the burning filled the clearing.

Owen ran into his first foe, who had only a sword. Unarmed, an Owen in his right state of mind would have frozen, but this Owen was not anywhere but that place only the mad grieved know. He charged the Forsaken and caught the bottom of the undead’s blade with his arm, but then barreled into him, knocking them both to the ground. The dead man whooped, like this was great fun, and Owen was besieged with the clear memory of those dead people who would poke him and laugh at him when he was in the cage.

He wrestled the undead to the ground and slammed his arms and fists into the dead man. The thing’s neck was exposed and its skin was soft and mushy; it reminded Owen of the cooked insides of a potato mashed together with butter. The skin and muscles were ripped and pulverized: bones were broken. Owen became dimly aware of a sharp burning in one of his arms and belatedly saw that the undead had been slamming him with his blade. Owen wrestled the blade out of his hands and drove it deep into the dead man’s throat, brought it out, then plunged it back into his face.

Owen rose and was immediately beset by more foes. He had no training with swordsmanship before this day, so he was wild in his strikes and most assuredly should have died if this had been a pitched battle. But it was not a battle in the traditional sense, and the undead saw him as an amusing, minor nuisance if they noticed him at all. The undead had one mission. Owen saw now.   
The object of that mission stood in the center of the clearing and it whirled and moved like a dancer, avoiding charges and whipping up maelstroms of fire and frost. When a contingent of undead would rise on one side, he would turn the earth below their feet to ice and skirt his way around them as they slipped and roared for his blood. When lone warriors made their moves on him he blew them away with either that mysterious, invisible force Owen saw him use so much, or more visible, blinding flashes of fire colored red, orange and white. His staff spun in his hands like a marcher’s baton, throwing up any who came near enough to strike and knocking them off their feet. In this way Owen watched Elias run circles around his enemies, isolating them with walls of fire and slowing them with storms of ice and water and sometimes using the (now slowing) rampages of his golem as a natural barrier.

In this fashion the soldiers of the undead fell in droves. The whole world became to Owen a graveyard in revolt, the corpses of the dead moaning and spasming in the earth, tormented by their eldritch decree to bring down their tormentor. But not all fell so easily, and Arnald first of all continued his chase furiously. Even when he was slipped up or slowed by ice spells or battered about and tripped by arcane, the gigantic warrior never gave up and never ceased his chase. More and more, Elias had to give special attention to the furious warrior and slammed him multiple times with balls of fire big enough to have consumed Owen’s house. But Arnald shrugged these attacks off, and even when he was burning like a man-torch he continued forward, roaring and roaring some sort of war-song until the flames were put out. Owen could only assume that the warrior had some sort of protection from the magic fire.

Then it happened.

Owen couldn’t be sure exactly _when_ it happened. With Elias scrambling around to evade his foes, it was very difficult to tell when exactly he started moving on all fours. It was hard, in the dark and the rain and the flashes of blinding light coming from his staff and his spells for Owen to see when the change came to Elias’s face. Despite his maneuvering, Elias was getting hit both by the occasional blade and the errant bolt. Even Arnald got a strike it, one that turned Elias around and ripped his cloak right open. It was then that Owen’s slower mind started to catch up and he saw.

Elias arms and legs had grown darker, and Owen realized that this was because they were becoming hairier. His hands changed too: his nails elongated to claws and yellowed. His eyes brightened but they had a grim, wild light to them. The muttonchops that had dominated the mage’s cheeks flattened and spread out all over his face and chin and forehead and _everything_. Elias now moved with an arched back, like his spine had tried to break from the skin of his back. His mouth widened and opened more frequently in snarls, and then Owen saw rows of canine teeth crowd his mouth as he howled and snarled in the chaos.

And then, if it hadn’t been for the staff he still gripped in one hand, all traces of the noble human mage were gone. A wild, wolf-like animal had taken his place. Now when undead came near Elias swung with his paws, slicing flesh and bones. And when he had to run through them he would tackled them and his fangs would dive into their necks and faces, and he would spring off them, running on all fours with the staff still awkwardly in hand. Blood dripped from Elias face, making him look like some nightmarish cross between wolf and vampire.

Owen saw something else too. And he probably would not have seen it if he hadn’t spent a big portion of his life sneaking around himself, careful to never wake his father, careful to never get caught stealing so he could sell his baubles to Rane so he could get coin to spend on food. He probably wouldn’t have noticed the careful, watchful undead with the sword and the long knife creeping near the edge of the clearing if he himself hadn’t been so used to waiting for just the right moment to strike and snatch someone’s belongings. Owen saw the dead man when he entered the clearing bent low and moving fast—sprinting to the spot in Elias’s dance would momentarily take him.

Owen broke into a run across the glade, avoiding the spells and attacks of the undead. Still, he felt his speed flag and his own vitality draining. How many times had he been hit? Were any of his wounds fatal?

He caught the undead just before he reached the unaware wolf-man. Owen yelled, swinging his sword wildly, and the dead man howled at being thwarted. Elias immediately whirled and marked him as Owen drove him away.

Owen noticed something strange about the dead man’s weapons. They were slick with something.

There was something about this dead man and the way he fought that was unlike the others, even unlike Arnald. And - proving all his friends and father wrong for saying his head was good for nothing at all (though sometimes for banging against a wall, if you were the latter) - Owen realized that he was in a fight with the leader—the dead man responsible for all the others.

The one responsible for Isabel.

Owen spoke. “Why?” he asked the dead man. “Why?”

The leader of the dead men looked surprised. He deflected Owen’s clumsy blows, but he seemed not all that interested in fighting. Like he had lost his chance. The light in his sick yellow eyes seemed to have gone out.

“I was forsaken,” he said.

Then he came forward with a fury Owen hadn’t expected, and Owen felt blows criss-cross his chest. He fell away, waving his blade at the dead man. But the leader came on after him.

There was a blast of blinding power and the undead vaulted into the woods. Blinking away the white, Owen watched as the undead leader careened across the clearing, lit by bright fire.

Then he was shocked to hear near him a dark, gravelly voice: “Rest at last, Lionel.”

Owen tried to turn but fell down instead. The sword fell out of his hand and he touched where the sneaky dead man had hit him and his hand came away running with blood. He blinked, not understanding.

Then the whole world disappeared.


	17. Epilogue

Owen didn’t know when it came back, but when it did, Elias was sitting over him. He was human again. He looked very pale, his face was marked by purple bruises and a new scar.

“Sit up for me.”

Owen didn’t want to, but did. A groan rattled out his throat and he looked to Elias helplessly.

“I can’t move,” he said.

He expected the mage to shrug and go back to fighting. But when he did not move, Owen realized that nothing else was moving either. The whole world had fallen silent.

Owen saw why.

There were so many corpses that in many places they were stacked above the brush. They were all in varying stages of frostbite, charring and dismemberment. Some were hardly recognizable as bodies at all. Owen did pick out the huge frame of Arnald, though. He had fallen near the center, and his blade was broken at the haft.

Owen wanted to vomit. But he didn’t. He was too awed.

There were so many of them. Could one man really have killed them all? Owen did not think that he had met that many people in the course of his whole life.

“Owen?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Do you think this is enough?”

“What’s enough, sir?”

“Them. For her. Is it a fair trade?”

Owen looked around. He looked for Isabel’s body, but it was gone from its perch, where it had looked over the slaughter like an dread angel.

“No,” he said.

“No?”

Owen shook his head. “This is all?” he asked, and wept.

 

***

 

Isabel’s grave was dug next to her mother’s. Owen had dug much of the grave himself, but Elias helped by smoothing off the edges and sides with magic. When Owen was done, Elias helped him out and Owen stared, awed, at the grave. He looked to the gravestone and felt a pang.

“What does it say?” he asked, feeling ashamed.

But there was no reproach in Elias’s voice when he said, aloud, like a trumpeter: “ _Here lies Isabel Thorington. Daughter, niece, beloved._ ”

Owen had hoped that it would have made him feel better to hear the words. It didn’t. In fact it had felt very hollow.

He repeated the words to himself in his head. That was better, but not much. Maybe words weren’t as important as Elias made them out to be.

They carried Isabel’s coffin - a beautiful wooden casket run along its sides with painted flowers - and Elias carefully lowered it into the grave with a spell. They then filled it up again and patted down the spot. Now it looked like a grave.

They stood there, the coated boy and the coated man, and stared at the grave and the gravestone.

When some time had passed Elias said, in a voice that wasn’t as clear as it had been just moments ago, “Goodbye Isabel. Safe havens to you. I am sorry.”

He ducked away and was gone.

Owen barely noticed. He had a poor conception of time that night and he would remember the night only in pieces blurred and distorted by time.

Owen thought about saying many things but didn’t open his mouth. He stayed at the grave and stared down at it.

He opened his mouth again. The lips barely parted. Then his mouth closed and he didn’t say anything at all.

He never said anything at all.


End file.
